or Read It Now - Jim`s Repair Service

Traveling Eternity Road
A Struggle for Consciousness
James Richard Wiley
Introduction
Meet Nick Jordan, a character born into a Catholic family in the
small town of Larkspur, Vermont. He has no memory of who he is or
where he came from but he learns to fit in by copying those around him.
When Nick reaches adulthood, he begins to travel, and discovers that
the descriptions he learned in church and school about the world do not
match up with his own personal experience. The conflict between the
two conflicting views launches him into an examination of the origins of
religious dogma and the nature of human experience. In the process, he
discovers a secret within himself that cannot be taught or spoken.
Permissions Page
The author would like to thank the following for permission to
reprint material from the internet.
Erowid – Timeline
Jack Herer – Hemp logo
Marijuana Policy Project – Drug War Victims
NORML – Famous Pot Smokers
LEAP – Speaker profiles.
I tried but was not able to contact all the owners of internet material I
included in this book. As a self-publishing project, my intent was to
educate the American public with little chance of making a profit. Please
contact me if my use of material infringed on anyone's copy-rights and I
will rectify it.
James Wiley
jrwi@rcn.com
Table of Contents
Part One – The Opposite of Nothingness
1. From Zero to One………………………………………002
2. Becoming Human………………………………………012
3. Educate Me………...…………………………………...025
4. Breaking Away…………………………………………037
5. Corpus Christi Diary…………………………………...050
6. Tasting Forbidden Fruit………………………………..062
7. Higher Education………………………………………076
8. Independence…………………………………………..090
9. The Winds of Change………………………………….103
Part Two – God is My Higher Self
1. Make Me Believe……………………...........................116
2. Seventeen Religions to Choose From…………………127
Part Three - Nanny Says No
3. From Regulation to Interdiction……………………….137
4. A Strategy of Lies……………………………………..141
5. The Prohibitionists Viewpoint………………………...152
6. The Course of Zero Tolerance…………………………164
7. A Policy of Harm Reduction…………………………..174
8. Unintended Consequences of Prohibition……………..183
9. The Turning of the Tide……………………………….194
10. Industrial Hemp………………………………………...213
11. Medical Marijuana and the DEA……………………….225
12. Re-legalize All Drugs…………………………………. 235
13. Prohibition I and II – A Timetable……………………..246
14. The Repeal of Inalienable Rights……………………….263
15. Famous People Who Have Smoked Pot………………...268
16. Sources…………………………………………..............280
17. An Invitation………………………………………….…281
18. Presidential Candidates on U.S. Drug Policy……………283
Part One
The Opposite of Nothingness
A Biography
When You Really Think About It
It Never Happened
1
From Zero to One
My name is Nick Jordan
When I became conscious for the first time, I was lying on my back,
in a crib staring at a ceiling. The walls of the room that surrounded me
contained wallpaper images of ducks, horses, teddy bears and other little
animals.
When I examined myself, I discovered I was a tube – a tube with
arms and legs over which I had very little control. I tried to recall how I
became a tube but I could not remember having existed before that
moment.
Someone lifted me from the crib, carried me into another room and
placed me in a high chair where I could have a better look at my
surroundings. At one end of the room stood a black double sink, old
painted cupboards and a washing machine. Against another wall stood a
gas & wood stove. The smoke from the stove passed through a black
metal pipe that went into the wall. At the time, I did not know the names
of these items and I could not form words with my mouth, but I could see
what went on around me.
As I grew older, I discovered that I lived inside a house that was over
two hundred years old with three fireplaces, a vegetable cellar and an
attic. The attic contained twelve-inch square timbers, which the builders
had secured with large wooden spikes. The builders finished the rest of
the house with rectangular, iron nails.
As the years passed, I began to explore the interior and learned that
monsters lived in certain hiding places. Two of the monsters hung out in
the bathroom and waited for me to show up to relieve myself. One lived
inside the toilet out of sight while the other lurked inside the water closet
close to the ceiling. I was most vulnerable sitting on the bowl and
worried it would come up from below and grab me. If it dragged me
down into the toilet, no one would ever know what happened to me.
When I pulled the chain, both monsters roared at the same time as I ran
out of the room and slammed the door behind me.
One day I found out the house in which I had appeared sat on the
surface of a giant rock that floated in space. When I looked out the
window at night, I could see other rocks floating in space, just like ours.
As the days passed, I began to watch and listen to everything around
me and discovered that I was a human being. I lived at 37 Rocky Hill
Road in the Town of Larkspur, Vermont, USA. I also discovered that
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other humans existed besides my family and me - human beings who
came to the house to visit and leave things.
Every few days a man came to our door with a big block of ice he
carried between two steel tongs. My mommy, Tina would open the door
and the man placed the ice in our big black icebox. The icebox was shiny
on the inside and the ice fit neatly into one of the compartments. The
icebox kept our food cold so it would not spoil. One day, two men
arrived at our door with an electric icebox called a refrigerator, and took
away our old black one.
In the wintertime, things changed. The oilman parked his truck on
the hill and pulled a long red rubber hose across the snow-covered yard
to a pipe on the side of the house. The pipe led to a gigantic stainless
steel oil tank in the cellar that fed the furnace. The fire inside the furnace
heated up the water pipes, which fed the steam radiators in each room.
As the radiators filled with steam, they began to bang from the pressure.
It was a sound I enjoyed hearing on cold winter mornings. One of my
favorite places was the attic where my daddy, Owen, set up his amateur
shortwave radio equipment. Daddy could talk to other ham radio
operators all over the world and exchange postcards, which he tacked to
the big wooden beams overhead. The attic was also a good place to hide
from Nina, who was beginning to find more reasons to spank me, my
brother, and my sister, for naughty behavior.
The back yard contained a swing, an old apple tree and space for a
garden. After my daddy got a good deal on a load of stainless steel pipes,
he pounded them into the ground and strung them together with electrical
wire. We planted corn, string beans, summer squash, tomatoes,
cucumbers, beets, lettuce, and some tall flowers called hollyhocks. Over
the next two months, the little seeds grew into vegetables and flowers
right before my eyes. I could not believe it. I had witnessed my first true
miracle.
One-day daddy brought home a big television with a small screen
that someone had given him. He made it work by changing some tubes
inside but the picture was fuzzy so he installed an antenna on the roof
with an electric rotor that turned to pick up the signal. The black and
white picture was small and sometimes dim but we were able to watch
Lassie, Howdy Doody, The Cisco kid, Superman, The Lone Ranger,
Hopalong Cassidy, The Mickey Mouse Club, Amos n' Andy, Boston
Movie Time, Kate Smith and Lawrence Welk.
Some shows we could not watch like My Friend Flicka because the
boy got mad at his parents - or Alfred Hitchcock, because it was too
scary. Mommy always checked the movies against the ratings in the
Catholic Bishops Legion of Decency to see if they were safe for children
3
to watch.
Kindergarten
When I reached the age of five, mommy took me to Mrs. Wilson's
kindergarten - a nursery school next door where I learned how to read
and write. I sat in a room with ten boys and girls and watched as Mrs.
Wilson and her assistant, Miss Miller, taught us from a green chalkboard.
The two women wrote words and letters on the chalkboard and we
pronounced them and copied them down on paper. Mrs. Miller would
walk around the room and check on our progress. Sometimes we
practiced addition and subtraction with wooden blocks, or drew pictures
in coloring books with Crayola crayons.
When the lessons ended, they let us play with toys they kept stored
in big wooden boxes in the storage room. Mrs. Wilson did a good job of
teaching and I liked being in her school except for the times she got mad
or was too nosy. One time she got mad at Lewis Garbo who broke down
and started bawling in front of everybody. Other times somebody would
wet his or her pants and she or Mrs. Miller had to take care of it.
After our lessons ended, we went outside to play. We could play in
the sandbox with toy cars and toy people and build roads. We also played
games in the driveway with balls, croquet mallet's and plastic horseshoes.
At noontime, I went home to eat dinner and came back for the
afternoon session. This time we practiced our ABC's, counted numbers
and tried to read from picture books with big letters. I liked the
afternoons best because we could paint using little paint cups and put
together puzzles.
At the end of school when the big hand on the wall clock was on the
twelve and the little hand was on the three, we put everything away and
got ready to go home. Mrs. Wilson took out the rope from the closet –
the one with metal rings, which we held onto as we walked up the street.
Church
Every Sunday morning mommy made us get up early to go to mass
at Sacred Heart Church. I was old enough to put on my clothes by
myself, except for my shoes, which my sister, Lucy had to tie for me. On
most Sundays, we walked to church together except for daddy who did
4
not go to church. If it rained or snowed too heavily or we were late,
mommy would make him get up and give us a ride, or sometimes pick us
up afterwards. He liked to sleep late on Sunday and did not like it when
mommy woke him up. Mommy wanted daddy to become a Catholic and
go with us to church on Sunday but he did not want to.
The first thing I had to do when I walked inside the church was to
dip my fingers in the porcelain bowl by the door and make the Sign of
the Cross on myself. This was important because a priest had blessed the
water in the bowl and made it holy. After we all blessed ourselves we
walked through the black swinging doors all the way to the benches at
the front of the church. Mommy wanted to be as close to the altar as
possible because that's where God was.
When we found our seats, we had to first kneel down and say
prayers. The benches contained books called My Sunday Missal, which
we used to follow along with the priest as he said the Mass. I could never
keep track of the ceremony using the missal, so I just copied what
everyone else did.
When Father O'Brien emerged from the sanctuary with the altar boys
and began the Mass, everyone stood up. The priest would say the prayer
of confessing one's sins to God and we would follow along, reading from
our missals. At some point, the choir in the balcony began to sing hymns
to God, and the rest of us joined in. Everybody had to kneel, stand, and
sit on the benches at certain times. At last, the time came for Father
O'Brien to read from the Epistles of St. Paul and give a sermon. For
years, I listened very hard to priests give their sermons but I never
understood a single word they said. Sometimes I would almost fall asleep
until someone nudged me and gave me a stern look.
A Mass said by Father Clifford was the easiest to get through
because he was a former boxer who did everything fast, but when
Monsignor Tracy said the Mass, it seemed like everything moved in slow
motion. Sometimes I would get so tired and bored I would begin to look
around, but mommy would always notice and turn my head back to the
front.
The most sacred part of the ceremony called Holy Communion was
for people who had gone to confession and fasted the night before. They
would kneel at the altar rail, receive the Host on their tongues and return
to their seats to pray. I liked that part the best because I could see what
each person looked like. Most people were well-dressed and looked holy
- especially the young women and girls.
At the very end of the ceremony, the priest turned to face us and
said, "The mass is ended, go in peace," to which we responded, "Thanks
be to God."
5
Sacred Heart School
When I was six years old, mommy told me I would have to enter the
first grade at the end of the summer. This worried me but at the same
time, I looked forward to it because I was getting bored at home.
The leaves had begun to change color and the nights were getting
colder when September of 1955, arrived. I felt excitement and fear as I
stood in a crowd of parents and crying children in the basement of our
church. One of the Sisters of Saint Theresa called out our names and one
by one, we lined up in two rows. After the roll call ended, Sister John
David, and Sister Claire Angela took us into custody.
The door to the outside opened and we marched in a long line up the
street toward Sacred Heart School, a red brick building full of
classrooms. Twenty-eight of us went into a classroom that contained
Heywood-Wakefield desks and chairs, bolted to the floor and green
chalkboards on the walls. Above the chalkboards, thanksgiving
decorations covered the walls
Sister John David, my first grade teacher, assigned seats to everyone
and gave out books, which we placed inside our desks. The lessons
included reading, writing, arithmetic and religion. The Catechism
questions and answers proved difficult in the beginning but Sister helped
us pronounce the words and made us memorize them.
"Who made us?"
"God made us."
"Who is God?"
"God is the supreme Being Who made all things."
"Why did God make us?"
"God made us to do His will so that after we die we can go to
Heaven and be with Him forever and ever."
Classmates
I found the other kids in the class fun to watch. It looked to me like
someone or something had hit Andrew Fischer in the head and he never
fully regained consciousness. David Girard looked like he had just
escaped from reform school and Bruce Wickham had a wise mouth on
him that opened once he was outside the classroom.
6
In contrast to these three, Michael Mann displayed good manners
accompanied by a high IQ. Donovan Callan was a fast runner and Ricky
Mahoney was a natural comedian who laughed at everything.
The girls in my first grade class were as smart as the boys were, and
some of them were quite pretty. My first experience with unrequited love
came when a Japanese girl appeared in our class for one semester. I fell
madly in love with her but I was too scared to risk rejection from her or
teasing from the other kids. She disappeared when the semester ended,
and left me with a broken heart. How sad.
When recess time came, Sister sent us outside to play after the bigger
kids left the schoolyard. We played hill-dill or ball tag in the sand or
marbles in the dirt. Marbles was not my favorite game because I was not
very good at it. I would bring a brand new bag of marbles to school and
lose it before the bell rang. The plan was to scatter the marbles and then
roll them, one by one, into a hole called the "pot" with a gentle nudge
from one's curled forefinger. A grain of sand or a depression in the dirt
could deflect the marble around the hole or it could roll in one side and
then out the other side if you pushed it too hard. The last marble into the
hole won the pot for the player.
My favorite marbles were the clear or semi transparent ones and the
worst marbles were the solid white ones with streaks. The most valuable
marbles were the giant cat-eyes, which serious players saved for
championship playoffs.
The girls played their games in a different area of the schoolyard.
They played hopscotch, jump rope or stood in groups and talked. There
was a clear line of separation between the boys and the girls, which no
one crossed.
After twenty minutes of exercise, the bell rang and we lined up in
front of the building and marched inside. Sister John David gave us
lessons in reading, writing and arithmetic, until midday when the kids
that rode the bus opened their lunchboxes. The rest of us formed a line
outside and marched home for lunch, except that we called it "dinner".
When I arrived at the house, mom had the meal almost ready to eat.
When dad came through the door ten minutes later, we washed our
hands, and sat at the table to say grace and eat. Nina was a devout
Catholic for whom the blessing of the food and the family eating together
was a very important affair. As the meal began, so did the talking. I had
already learned from experience to say as little as possible at the table if I
wished to avoid unflattering comments and corrections from family
members. When one did speak, the best policy was to choose words that
made the family think well of you - a difficult task for a self-centered
blabbermouth that couldn't stop talking.
7
On bad days, I could smell the cooked liver with onions, before I
reached the screen door. To this day, I do not know why Nina insisted I
eat liver when she knew I detested it. After repeated attempts to eat the
rubbery slab I slipped it into my pocket and later tossed it into the
bushes. Our new cat, Muggles, eventually solved my problem by
positioning himself under my chair whenever he smelled liver.
After dinner, we walked back to school or dad gave us a ride if we
were late.
.At 1 p.m., the bell rang in the schoolyard and we lined up in front of
the red brick building and marched inside, single file. The classroom
became much warmer in the afternoon as the sun reached the windows
on the west side of the building
By late springtime of that first year, the warm afternoons began to
drag on longer with art and writing exercises. As I became increasingly
bored, I began to look for ways to break up the monotony. At first, I
smuggled apples into my desk to munch on. Later I grew bolder and
relied on spitballs, paper airplanes, spring-loaded bobby pins, gum,
secret messages, and leaky fountain pens to break up the monotony.
As the school year progressed, Sister Margaret John organized
spelling bees, art contests and sometimes a surprise visit from one of the
parish priests. One-day Monsignor Tracy showed up to pass out shiny
new dimes to everyone to boost his popularity. I thought this was the
beginning of a new reward system and I waited a long time for him to
repeat the handout but he never did.
At 2:45 p.m., we put away our books and papers and gathered up our
things to take home. By 3 p.m. the bell rang and we marched out of the
building' to begin the long trek home.
When I began the second grade, I discovered something inside me
that would cause trouble later on in life. The problem was my built-in
logic and common sense. As long as I did not question the information, I
had no trouble memorizing the catechism questions and answers. Over
time, however I began to feel that catholic Doctrine put me at odds with
my body and the world that surrounded me.
At night before I fell asleep, I would raise the curtain in my bedroom
to stare at the moon and ask myself - who am I and how did I get here?
I would ask myself this question repeatedly over the years but the
moon and the stars never gave me an answer - only a feeling of mystery
and wonder that I could not put into words. Later, this feeling became
very precious to me.
As the months passed, my restless nature began to surface and I
decided to join the roster of troublemakers at school. Thomas Gerard and
8
his sidekick, Guy Cobisero, were perfect adversaries in this business and
ready to engage me in battle.
One day I made a tactical error during a game of chase and ended up
the boys room, where they cornered me in one of the toilet stalls. The
two of them had me upside down with my head in the toilet bowl when
one of the older boys came in and put a stop to it. As I ran out of the
basement, I could hear Tom vow he would finish the job later.
Two days later, we were back at it again in the school parking lot
where I collapsed on the sand, too tired to run any further. At this point
Tom got on top of me and pinned me down.
This time things got out of hand. I decided to surrender but Tom did
not let me up; instead, he placed his hands over my nose and mouth and
pressed so hard I could not breathe. I became terrified and started to
struggle but he held on until I began to lose consciousness. In the
background, I could hear the school bell ring. Suddenly, he removed his
hands and ran back to the schoolyard to get in line. I got to my feet and
staggered back, scarcely believing what he had done. It was supposed to
be a game yet he had tried to kill me.
I was so angry and upset that I took the bold step of complaining to
Sister St. Beatrice. To my surprise, she accused me of being an agitator,
and causing trouble with the other kids. My plan for revenge backfired
and I decided to stay away from Master Gerard to avoid more
humiliation. Several weeks later, however, an opportunity arose when he
brought a deck of pornographic playing cards into the boys room and
showed them around. I saw my opportunity and reported him to Sister St.
Beatrice who responded by contacting Sister St. Helen, the Superior of
the Convent.
The two of them confronted Tom and forced him to surrender the
cards, which Sister St. Helen had to inspect to make sure they were
indeed, pornographic. Later, in the boy's room, I could hear him declare
he would find the squealer and make him pay for opening his sniveling
little mouth. I waited in my stall until he left and got out of there, fast.
I found out later that Tom had an alcoholic father that knocked him
around at home. I felt sorry for him but it did not justify his attempt on
my life.
The first semester passed without incident until one Monday
afternoon I was in line, walking up Main Street. The group carried on
with the usual jostling and talking with an occasional smack from a
school bag. When we arrived at Chestnut Street and crossed over to the
traffic island, I noticed a group of children ahead of us had formed a
crowd at the crosswalk. When we moved closer, I saw what it was that
9
held their attention. On the other side of the street, a little girl lay spreadeagled on the pavement. As the wind gently lifted up her dress, it
revealed a tire track across her bottom. I had never before seen anyone
run over by a car and it made everything around me stop and begin to
move in slow motion. I stood and stared like everyone else, feeling
helpless and not knowing what to do. No one dared to approach her and I
felt so bad that I decided to leave. I ran home and felt depressed for the
rest of the day. Several days later, an article appeared in the Larkspur
Bulletin, about the accident and saying she was going to be okay.
The House on Rocky Hill Road
By the summer of 1958, Nina had four children to raise and a
workload that seemed to grow larger each day. She needed more time
alone and a playroom where the children could get play without
destroying everything. She decided to hire a French contractor named
Paul Croteau to turn the wasted storage area into a recreational room.
Paul and his assistants first tore out the rotted wooden flooring,
braced the outer wall with wooden planks, and leveled the dirt floor.
After that, he pumped in the concrete.
During this operation, I heard shouting. When I rushed to the scene,
I saw the side of the building had bulged outward like a fat man's belly
and liquid concrete had begun to pour onto the sidewalk. Paul and his
crew raced to avert a catastrophe by removing some of the concrete and
reinforcing the wall before pumping it back inside the room. I watched
Paul's little boy, Claude, stand white faced, and almost in tears as if the
incident was his fault.
Paul and his crew finished the playroom and a few days later, the
furniture and equipment began to appear - a punching bag, an old record
player, green bus seats and shelving to hold books and toys. Later, more
contractors arrived to redo the bathroom, install a laundry storage space
and build a doorway that opened directly to the backyard. Our new
playroom stood finished and ready to take the beating we were prepared
to deliver.
A month later Owen must have received a pay increase because
Nina started turning on the hot water switch on bath night so we could all
take baths without heating the water on the stove. I was not keen on
taking a bath, but I liked to slide down into a tub of warm soapy water
and play with my boats. Sometimes I would doze off and wake up when
Lucy or Roger pounded on the door.
"What is taking you so long? Get out of there! Other people need to
use the bathroom too, you know."
10
"Okay, okay, I'll be done in a little while."
"You'll be done now!"
Under these conditions, when I had to get out fast I had to wrap
myself in a towel, grab my clothes and head for my cold bedroom. I had
outgrown my fear of the toilet monsters but I had not overcome my fear
of going into my bedroom alone, at night. I always left the door open in
case something in the dark room reached out and tried to grab me before
I could turn on the light. I had learned from experience that at least one
and possibly more monsters lived under my bed at night.
The challenge was to catch the string from the light on the first try so
I could turn it on before I panicked. If I caught the string on the first try
and turned on the light, a feeling of confidence overcame my fear and I
could mentally scream my defiance at the creatures to come out from
under the bed and face me. I knew it was dangerous to provoke monsters
but with a bright light to illuminate every corner, I could not resist the
impulse.
As bedtime grew closer, I began to question the wisdom of my
actions. I remembered that I had repeated this provocation before and
after I fell asleep, the monsters came and attacked me in my dreams.
Monsters have the upper hand in the dream world and they never ignored
my challenge. The pact I had made with my teddy bear to back me up did
not help.
After repeating several terrible episodes, I decided to call a truce and
leave the monsters alone if they would leave me alone. This decision
ended the problem.
With the monster problem under control, I turned my attention to
fighting boredom on hot summer nights when I could not fall sleep. I
discovered that if I opened the door a crack I could read by the weak
illumination from the hall light. My mom warned me I could ruin my
eyes doing that but she left me no choice. All I had to do was find books
to read that had big letters and hide them in my bed. The only danger I
faced was her catching me reading instead of going to sleep. I solved the
problem by tying a string to the door handle so I could pull it shut if she
entered the hallway. In the unlikely event she opened my door, I could
let go of the string and hope she would not notice. There was a small risk
that she would discover my ploy, but as the years passed, she never did.
The strategy worked well but sometimes my late night reading left
me tired and irritable in the morning.
When I tired of reading books to fall asleep, I decided to try
something new. I pushed my bed to the other side of the room next to the
window. A few years earlier, dad had installed wooden frame storm
windows and drilled three holes through the bottom with a slider for
11
ventilation. This allowed me to open the inner window a few inches and
breathe the cold winter air from outside while I stayed warm and
comfortable under the blankets. I could also look through the window
and watch the outside world. On a snowy night, the sky turned pink as
the snowflakes fell beneath the streetlights. As the snow covered the
road's surface, it muffled the sound of passing cars.
On clear nights, I raised the curtain and stared at the beauty of the
universe until I fell asleep. These were the rare moments when I felt at
peace with the world.
12
Becoming Human
By the age of nine I was old enough to do housework, make meals,
wash dishes, and get spanked on my bare buttocks with a flat wooden
tent stake known as "the ruler" when I rebelled against Nina's orders.
Saturday morning was the time when her patience ran out and
spanking seemed the only way to get the day's work done. As much as I
hated this kind of abuse, it did break up the resistance. After the corporal
punishment, the crankiness disappeared and we tearfully carried out our
assignments.
On Saturday afternoon, the housecleaning ordeal ended and the
moment arrived to take a bath and go to confession. The solitary walk to
confession became one of the pleasant moments in my weekly routine.
When I arrived at the entrance to the church, I had to struggle with
the heavy oak door and feel the air rush past me into the dark interior.
When the door closed, the atmosphere of silence and flickering shadows
replaced the sound of traffic and street noise from outside. People within
the church sat quietly or knelt in prayer with only the occasional whisper
or creak of the wooden pews to break the silence.
The time I spent on my knees gave me a chance to figure how many
times I had disobeyed Nina, lied or entertained sinful thoughts, and how
much penance the priest should give me as a punishment. I knew that
three disobediences and one lie equaled three Hail Mary's from Father
Clifford and an extra Our Father from Monsignor Tracy. I had to be
careful what I confessed to Monsignor Tracy after I foolishly admitted
the sin of masturbation with sexual fantasies and he burdened me with a
rosary.
The prayers of contrition at the altar rail and the close proximity of
the altar decorated with flowers and holy objects left me cleansed of my
wrongdoing. The plaster statues of Mary, the mother of God, and Joseph,
her husband, stood before me as symbols of authority and goodness. I
felt clean and ready to start over after I recited the penance and left the
church.
As the years passed, mom and dad rented out the downstairs, first to
a Mrs. Stacey, for thirty dollars a month. Mrs. Stacey was a soft-spoken
grey haired woman that made a fine tenant. She must have suffered from
the racket made by the four children who lived upstairs but I never heard
her complain.
13
One hot summer night, Mrs. Stacey's son, Garrett, who was visiting
her, spent the evening on the couch, smoking cigarettes and watching
television. He finally succumbed to the boredom of the television shows
and the lateness of the hour and drifted off into oblivion.
At 2 a.m. I was asleep at the other end of the house when I began to
dream that I could not breathe. When I opened my eyes, I could not see
anything but I realized that the room was full of smoke. I managed to
raise the window and get a lungful of fresh air before I heard someone
shout, "Get out of the house!"
I headed for the kitchen and ran out the front door where I met my
two sisters and my older brother standing on the sidewalk. Meanwhile,
my father tried unsuccessfully to break into the downstairs and rescue the
tenants.
The firefighters arrived in time to drag out Garrett, who was
unconscious from smoke inhalation. Mom took us next door to
grandma's house where we slept in her vacant dusty beds. The next
morning dad called the firefighters back to hose down the hotspots in the
ceiling that had flared up from the night before. By a miracle, the fire
damage was limited to the apartment but Mrs. Stacey and her son had to
move out.
After the excitement of the fire died down, I returned to my favorite
activity of visiting the library to read books and magazines. I had read all
of the Boys Life magazines I could find, and later I read all the adventure
and science fiction novels on the second floor. I also searched for tales of
the Old West.
One day, as I walked down the granite steps of the library, I became
consumed by the strange feeling that the world around me was an image
that arose inside my head. I felt I had to hold it in place or it would slip
away and vanish. This feeling came and went over the next few days
until I decided to take a chance and let go of it. I was quite relieved when
it stayed put.
After the Stacy's left, my father hired a cleanup crew to repair the
damage to the downstairs apartment. When they finished, Miss O'Brien,
a dental assistant at the Vermont State Hospital, moved in and became a
permanent resident.
The next month, Nina called the local newspaper office and put in
my name for a job delivering newspapers.
The newspaper route offered by the news agency began on Cedar
Street, a few blocks away, and ended at the bottom of Lawrence Street. I
was the right age and lived in the right spot to be a newspaper boy for
that section of town. A few days later the hiring agent called back and
14
offered me the job. I was excited at the prospect of earning money for the
first time and shouldering responsibility like an adult. I also liked being
outside at 5 a.m. when the streets of Larkspur were dark and silent. The
only problem I faced was the heavy weight of the papers on my thin tenyear-old frame.
At 3 a.m., a trucker delivered the Boston Herald and Boston Globe
newspapers to Murphy's News Shop on Pine Street where Mr. Murphy
and his son, Henry, counted and tied the papers into bundles. From there
they drove a pick up truck to the drop-off points and tossed out the
bundles. I arrived at 5:30 a.m., cut the string, and loaded the newspapers
into a bag draped across my shoulder.
The first problem I had to face on this first job was the excessive
weight. When I complained to my dad he tried to make it easier for me.
He built a two-wheeled cart with a green plastic cover over the top to
carry the newspapers. It seemed like a good idea but the cart was difficult
to pull up the hills and over bumpy surfaces and I soon tired of pulling it
all the way back home at the end of the route. After I gave up on the cart,
I tried riding a bicycle but the weight and bulk of the bag made it
impossible to pedal and keep my balance.
The second problem I faced was the dogs. Larkspur did not have a
leash law, which made me a target for every dog on my route. My first
impulse was to carry a weapon to defend myself but if I antagonized or
injured a customer's dog, this could cause trouble. The solution was to
tiptoe to the front door, insert the paper, and quickly tiptoe away before
the dog discovered my presence.
The third problem I faced was a bad count from the Murphy's, which
might leave one or more customers without a paper. This could lead to an
argument over whose fault it was –mine or the Murphy's.
During the winter, the job became more difficult. I had to bundle up
and fight my way through snowdrifts and blizzard conditions. Sometimes
I would slip and fall on glare ice hidden beneath a layer of powdery
snow. If the precipitation rose above six inches, the no-school horn often
sounded which allowed me to relax and take my time.
Despite the obstacles, the payoff at the end of the week made it all
worthwhile. On Saturday, it was time to collect the newspaper money,
which included tips, and then ride my bike to Murphy's shop. Mr.
Murphy counted the money, took his cut and returned the rest to me,
which I turned over to mom to put into a savings account.
The payoff came when I stopped at the Uptown Market to purchase a
choice of Hostess Twinkies, Chocolate Cupcakes, Snowballs, or Table
Talk pies for ten cents apiece. The pastries I looked forward to eating
contained refined sugar, white flour, hydrogenated coconut oil, and
15
preservatives - all of which gave me a headache and nausea later on after
I ate them.
The other source of pleasure was around the corner. Two old geezers
named Pete and Jeff, ran "Fosketts Market", a tiny grocery store on
Central Street. The main attraction here was the penny candy counter
where Pete would wait on the gang of school kids that showed up each
afternoon after school while Jeff, the butcher, cut meat and watched us
from the meat department. The selection inside the glass case included
Fireballs, Bazooka bubble gum, Hershey's chocolate bars, Raisinettes,
Necco wafers, red licorice, Reese's peanut butter cups, and a round stick
of translucent candy that contained coins inside. Once I discovered a
quarter imbedded inside and the candy only cost me ten cents(!)
As time passed, Nina began to buckle under the strain of looking
after four children and a husband. The occasional spats between my
parents became more frequent and she began to release her frustrations
by spanking the daylights out of us. On Saturday morning, the time we
all dreaded, the tension reached the high point of screaming and violence
that convinced me I was living in a madhouse. During those times, my
dreams became nightmarish episodes of terror and death. I often
drowned or fell from a great height, only to awaken, soaked in sweat.
The Catechism lessons at school increased the pressure by
convincing me that life was a punishment for being born. I learned the
story of Adam and Eve, the fall of Humanity from God's grace, and the
torture and murder of God's only son, Jesus, who was supposed to save
us. The worst part came when they told me it was all my fault even
though I was not alive at the time and never met Jesus. With this belief
system pounded into my head there was no hope for salvation except
through obedience to parents, church and government.
Part of me accepted my fate while another part of me remembered
how happy I was before I received this distressing knowledge. I had to
wait ten more years before I had gathered enough self-confidence to fight
back.
Entertainment
As Nina's energy diminished further with the birth of a fifth child,
the energy of her other children doubled and tripled. During our play
times, Lucy, Roger, Patty and I invented new ways to release our surplus.
The games we played in the backyard and in the playroom provided
some relief but the good times rolled when mom and dad left us alone at
home. The sight of their car disappearing down the street signaled me the
time had come to begin my favorite activity - tearing the house apart.
16
The joy of chasing and being chased from room to room surpassed
the excitement of any supervised game I have ever played. In the chaos
that followed, I might, by accident knock over freestanding closets and
furniture, or throw pillows, or any loose object within reach. The success
of the game depended on the alertness of the lookout to warn us when
mom and dad were coming back. We had only minutes to clean up the
mess and put everything back before they reached the front door. Mom
never realized what went on until one day I made a flying leap and
landed on her bed. The force of my landing knocked the Blessed Virgin
Mary off the mantelpiece and, to my dismay, her head came off after she
landed on the pillow. I could not believe the statue broke after such a soft
landing. Since I had no glue or repair skills, I could not cover up my
crime; instead, I had to face Nina's anger when she saw the Virgin statue
without her head. To get even she forced me to watch as she netted one
of my tropical fish and dropped it on the floor. I always remembered that
poor fish gasping for life as Nina stood by and let it die because of my
actions. It was a defining moment in our relationship.
During the summer, one of my favorite business transactions was to
trade stuff I no longer wanted with the neighborhood kids for comic
books. Nina did not approve of comic books so I had to smuggle them in
behind her back. When I was free to leave the house on a Sunday
afternoon, I would hide a few under my jacket and steal donuts from the
refrigerator on the way out the front door.
My favorite place to hide and read was behind a cement bottomed
water basin at the top of the hill we called the reservoir. The
embankment behind the reservoir was thick with shrubs and undergrowth
that provided a perfect hideout. Here on summer afternoons I read the
"approved" comics of Walt Disney and Dell although I strayed now and
then into DC Comics, Archie Comics and other "condemned"
entertainment. Comic books were easier to read than library books
because they provided pictures instead of making me to create the
pictures myself.
When I was not wandering through the neighborhood looking for
things to do, Nina found plenty of things for me to do at home - clean up
my room, do my homework, mow the lawn, wash the dishes or take out
the garbage.
One-day dad let Roger and I use his Argus 35 mm camera to snap
black and white photographs. This hobby eventually led us to set up a
darkroom in the cellar where we developed the exposed film and made
black and white prints. The camera also functioned as an enlarger using
negatives and a light source to expose the Kodak paper on the table.
17
When we ran out of money, we found a photography studio in town that
gave us their spent chemicals - developer, fixer and stop bath at no
charge.
Before long, I realized the dark stillness of the cellar created the
perfect defense against intrusions from other members of the family
especially Nina. If anyone opened the door, all I had to do was shout,
"Are you trying to ruin the film? Shut the door! " and the door would
immediately close.
Speaking of cellars, the foundation of our two hundred year-old New
England Inn consisted of large stones held together with mortar. The
cellar space included a second room beneath the stairs we called the
vegetable cellar. This underground room was the creepiest place in the
house with its dirt floor, dusty cobwebs and earthy smell. If you really
wanted to frighten a guest, lead him or her into the vegetable cellar, slam
and lock the door, and listen to the screams of terror and the pounding
fists.
Each Thursday night around 7 p.m., my mother would lead the four
of us in praying the rosary. My father was non-Catholic so he retreated to
his evening job at the radio station. When Nina could not be present to
lead us, we had to make a recording of the event on Owen's reel-to-reel
tape recorder. I tried to think of a way to outwit the technology but I
could not come up with a strategy. After we finished, we were free to do
homework, take a bath, or watch television.
My favorite shows at this time were "Jungle Jim" and "Tarzan" but
occasionally Nina allowed us to stay up late and watch "The Twilight
Zone" or "The Outer Limits."
During the hot summer months, I spent a lot of time in the backyard
looking for things to do. I had already smoked hollow twigs from the
shrubs at the top of the yard. After that, I tried frying ants using the sun's
rays with my magnifying glass. I felt a little uncomfortable doing this so
I switched to killing Japanese beetles by placing a drop of kerosene on
them while they were copulating and watching them go berserk. At other
times when I was alone in the house, I would catch houseflies and toss
them into the freezer. An hour later, I would take them out and placed
them on the windowsill to see if they would thaw out and fly again.
One day I was playing outside with my younger brother, Ernie, who
was the newest member of the family. I had this sudden impulse to hold
a worm in front of him while I stuck it with a pin. Anglers do this all the
time and nobody cares, but the site of that poor worm writhing in pain
was somehow different from fishing. He began to cry, so I stopped and
let the worm go. Later that day, I began to think about what I had done to
18
that poor worm and to my little brother and decided it was better to be
kind to other creatures.
In the summer of 1958, I joined the Boy Scouts with my older
brother, Roger. The troop held its weekly meetings in Our Blessed
Lady's Hall in the basement of Sacred Heart Church. During a weeklong
summer outing at Camp Collier, we sat around a huge bonfire to sing
songs and tell stories. The best stories were of boy scouts killed and left
buried in unmarked graves on the property, Boy Scout drownings, and
sightings of their ghosts wandering through the campsites at night.
During the telling of these tales, we could hear strange noises coming
from the woods around us. The youngest among us were visibly shaken
by this experience.
Back at the campsite when we were safely in our sleeping bags, Mr.
Vallee, the scoutmaster, made the rounds and sprayed 6-12 mosquito
repellent inside the tents. The last thing I remember before I fell asleep
was the pleasant smell of that repellent.
Sometime during the night, I awakened and found myself alone in
the dark with no idea where I was. At first, I thought I was having a
dream and not to worry - simply remain still and wait for the dream to
end. After waiting for several moments with no change, I crouched down
and felt pine needles beneath my feet. A jolt of fear passed through me
and I quickly realized I was lost somewhere in the woods! My worst
nightmare had come true and all the horror stories I had watched on TV
and listened to around the campfire, came at me in a wave of fear.
I began to cry for help, softly at first, and then louder - well aware I
could wake up the whole camp and make a fool out of myself. Finally, a
light came on nearby and I saw that I had wandered about thirty feet
from my tent. Mr. Vallee spotted me with his flashlight and asked me in
a worried voice what I was doing outside the tent. "You scared me half to
death, son," he said as he escorted me back to my bunk.
After I was safely under the covers I wondered what would have
happened if I had not awakened when I did. How deep into the woods
and swamp that bordered the camp could I have wandered?
Boyhood Friends
Outside my family my best friends were two brothers, Francis and
Ralph Fredette otherwise known as "Frank" and "Fuzz". At one point in
our friendship, Fuzz received permission to share the tent with me on the
weekends. This immediately opened up new opportunities for
entertainment. At Nina's request, Owen wired the tent with an intercom
so she could check on us at night. During the first few sleepovers, we
19
whispered back and forth and told jokes before going to sleep. On hot,
muggy, nights, however, we became restless and began to step outside
for some cooler air. The twinkle of stars and the full moon overhead
added to the fun but the heat from our bodies quickly attracted the
mosquitoes.
The mosquitoes forced us to keep moving and before long, we left
the backyard and began to walk around the neighborhood. As the
summer continued, we began to sneak through backyards and spy on our
neighbors through the windows. To us, it was innocent fun but the legal
term for this kind of behavior is prowling, and if a neighbor or a police
officer had spotted us, we could have gotten into trouble.
One night we hiked to the top of the hill and walked around the
concrete basin of water known as the reservoir. I had always wanted to
swim in that water and here was my chance to act out my fantasy. We
removed our clothes, climbed over the fence and lowered ourselves into
the warm liquid. The still surface of the water reflected the universe
perfectly and created the illusion we were swimming in a sea of stars. I
felt fear, excitement and refreshment - all at the same time.
The success of our bold venture increased our willingness to try
something even bolder the following weekend. This time we left the tent
earlier than usual and headed down Green Street toward the municipal
golf course.
A short distance beyond the radio station where my dad was the
chief engineer, we cut across the road onto the golfing green. From there
we made our way down the slope to the shore of Crystal Lake. In the
dead of night, filled with the sounds of crickets and an occasional hoot
owl, we took off our sneakers and socks, rolled up our pants and
searched through the muck with our bare feet, searching for golf balls.
We became so involved in what we were doing we lost all track of time.
When our bag was half-full of golf balls, we decided to head back to the
house.
Fuzz and I walked along Green Street at 2 a.m. in the morning,
chatting away and carrying our bag of golf balls when a lone car
approached and pulled off the road in front of us. As we nervously
approach the car, I could see it was my dad.
Unbeknownst to us, Nina thought she heard a noise in the backyard
during or after the time we left. After getting no response on the intercom
she, went outside to investigate. Imagine her surprise when she found the
tent empty! She awakened Owen and insisted that he get up and search
for us.
"What do you think you're doing out here in the middle of the night?
he said to me after we got in the car. "Your mother is worried sick."
20
"Collecting golf balls," I said as Fuzz held up the bag.
"Well, I don't think it's funny," he said to Fuzz, who had a big grin
on his face.
"Sorry dad. I didn't think ma would come out to check on us."
"Well she did."
He paused for a moment before he said, "I guess you won't be
sleeping outside for the rest of the summer."
"I guess not."
After we arrived back in the driveway, Fuzz said goodbye and went
home. Nina had waited up to make sure I was safe and to give me a piece
of her mind. She had caught me breaking our agreement to stay in the
tent and I pleaded guilty. I took down the tent the next day and in the
summers that followed, I continued to sleep outside, alone.
Chippy, Skippy and Pepper
A Chipmunk or ground squirrel is a rodent that is a common sight in
Vermont. Its fur is golden brown like a fawn's, with white spots and a
black stripe down the back. Over the years, our family adopted several
chipmunks that came to the front porch in search of food. With a little
patience, it was possible to persuade one to come close enough to take
unshelled peanuts from our fingers.
The first chipmunk to appear on our porch we named, Chippy.
Chippy lived in a tunnel he had dug between the stones on the stone wall
that supported the porch steps. He had moved as close as he could to the
peanut warehouse. Whenever we spotted him on the porch, we opened
the bag and offered him more peanuts.
In the end, our offerings of food led to his downfall. The little rodent
became so fat that he lost his lightning reflexes and one of the
neighborhood cats got him. I was heartbroken and blamed myself for
making life too easy for him. A few weeks later, however, another
chipmunk appeared on the porch in search of handouts and the cycle
began once more.
As the neighborhood cats kept an eye out for songbirds and
chipmunks, the neighborhood dogs kept an eye out for the cats. We had
our own version of a wirehaired terrier named Skippy who ran loose
around the neighborhood, chasing cats and causing trouble with the
neighbors. One day, he chased a cat into a neighbor's back yard a short
distance ahead of a posse of screaming children who were trying to save
the cat from his snapping jaws. The terrified cat managed to escape death
by clawing its way up a twenty-foot overhang of thorny blackberry vines.
21
Our dog lacked any sense of proper nutrition and ate anything he
could drag out of a trashcan or dig up from the ground. Despite the fact
that we fed him regularly with Purina and Ken-L-Ration Dog Food, he
preferred to rummage through the neighbor's trash and chew on old
bones he found lying around on the ground. It was not long before the
bones infected him with intestinal worms.
Before the worms got to him, Skippy's compulsion to chase speeding
objects proved his undoing. Our deliveryman, Nick, who used a
motorcycle with a sidecar to deliver groceries, passed Skippy on the
street one day and our witless canine gave chase. He caught up with the
front wheel of the vehicle and shoved his nose right into the spinning
spokes. A short time later Nick carried Skippy's spent body to our door
and was kind enough to explain what had happened. At the time, I felt
bad for Skippy, but later I realized he could have injured or killed Nick
because of our failure to restrain him.
Mother put his pain-wracked body into a cardboard box in the
kitchen while she and dad tried to figure out what to do. After watching
him suffer through the next day with no sign of improvement, they took
him to the vet who agreed to put poor Skippy to sleep. Apparently, he
had numerous broken bones and internal injuries in addition to his worm
problem. After Skippy's death, several years passed before we got a more
levelheaded animal – Muggles the cat.
Another wayward animal that provided drama for the neighborhood
was Pepper, a large black and white spaniel with droopy, red-rimmed
eyeballs that went well with his bad temper. Pepper belonged to the
Pierce family that lived further up the street. Most of the time Pepper
behaved and carried out his duties as a good watchdog. He kept the
neighborhood kids off his property and he had no problem driving away
the other dogs that came too close.
The occasional dogfight in our neighborhood broke out when two or
more dogs encountered one another outside their own territory. Once the
fight began, any attempt to separate the animals could be risky. I
discovered that a bucket of cold water dumped over two fighting dogs
usually ended the fight in a hurry. In the excitement, however, however,
it was possible to miss the dogs entirely and dump the load in the street.
In looking back on those episodes, I wonder if the growling and snarling
of the dogs and the screams of the onlookers, especially the girls, didn't
add to the excitement.
Pepper stepped over the line one day when he left his property and
wandered all the way down to Cedar Street. Just as he arrived, a little girl
stepped out on the sidewalk with her brand new kitten in her arms and
Pepper spotted the kitten at the same the kitten spotted him. The little girl
22
tried to run back to the safety of her house but the kitten panicked and
jumped out of her arms. It did not get far before Pepper caught up with it
and mauled it to death. The little girl ran inside, crying, as Pepper sniffed
the little furrball to make certain it was dead before he walked away,
satisfied with his good deed for the day.
Camping
During the hot summer months, many New Englanders head for the
campgrounds to escape the heat and humidity. Nina learned of a
campground in Massachusetts called Beaman Pond Recreational Area.
The campsites cost $5.00 a day and it sounded like a great way to get
away from the house for a few weeks. If I had a choice I would have
stayed behind to relax, read comic books, snack on junk food and stay up
late watching adult shows on television, while the rest of them went
camping.
After a few days of preparation building a wooden platform that dad
(Owen) and my brother, Roger, strapped to the car roof brackets, we
arrived at the campground. The pond was a dammed up section of Otter
River, which ran through the small town of Baldwinville. The campers
settled on one side of the pond with a picnic table, a fireplace and a
concrete storage locker sunk into the ground. A man in a truck delivered
blocks of ice to the campers for $2.00. On the other side of the pond the
picnickers arrived to eat swim and relax for the weekend.
Our family swam in the pond and sunbathed on the beach, or crossed
the dam to the snack bar on the other side for ice cream, mosquito
repellent, soda, ice and candy. The campground had a well at the edge of
the beach from which we pumped ice-cold water. That water was the
best I had ever tasted. We used it for cooking and drinking.
For several summers, I enjoyed the idyllic life at Beaman's but the
novelty began to wear off over time. Each summer became a repeat of
the last and the kind of people who camped there began to change. One
night, a couple set up camp nearby and after everyone around them had
gone to bed these two decided to bring out their guitars and sing songs by
the campfire – a little bonus for the other campers.
My mother urged Owen to go over there and say something to them,
but he refused. After more prodding, he finally got up and went over to
speak to them. After he crawled back into his sleeping bag the place
remained quiet for a few minutes. Suddenly the woman began singing
again! He had to go back and speak with them a second time before they
gave up and went to bed.
23
A few days after the country singers left, I awakened in the middle
of the night with a pain on the right side of my abdomen. The pain
continued into the morning hours at which time my father drove me to
the hospital emergency room. Dr. Thompson, our family physician,
diagnosed an appendicitis and scheduled me for emergency surgery - a
move that put an end to the camping for that year.
The final blow to our summer outings at Beaman's ended when a
rumor circulated that a girl at a nearby campsite was quite ill with some
disease like chickenpox or measles. Her condition worsened and as her
mother tried to decide what to do, the child suddenly died. Within hours,
the news of her death spread throughout the campground. People began
leaving in droves to avoid catching whatever she had. There was talk that
the mother had failed to get the child proper medical attention and was
therefore responsible for her death. The whole incident freaked me out
and I was glad to leave and never come back. I was terrified of death.
Domestic Violence
In the first ten years of their marriage, Nina and Owen had managed
to work things out but as the children appeared so did the pressure of
trying to keep up with the workload. Despite our help with the chores,
Nina still had to do the cooking, cleaning, shopping, bill paying, etc.
After I went to bed at night, I could hear them argue in the kitchen with
the doors closed. The tension between them at last reached the breaking
point and she began to complain to us about Owen – something she had
never done before. I felt sympathy for her but at the same time dad rarely
became angry with me or hit me the way she did, so my sympathy was
with dad.
For nearly a week, the hostility between them reached an intensity I
had never seen before and I became worried something bad was going to
happen. Nina was yelling and nearly in hysterics while Owen tried to
defend himself. There was talk of him walking out on the family and she
seemed almost daring him to do it. They were both upset over a money
shortage. Nina needed more money to pay the bills and Owen had no
more to give.
To avoid more confrontations, my father decided to take his midday
meal downtown. This infuriated Nina even more. She arose earlier than
usual one morning to continue the argument as he sat down to eat his
breakfast. Money was the main issue on her mind but she also wanted
him to stop smoking cigarettes and eating Hershey's chocolate bars,
which made him cranky. As he poured himself a cup of Chase and
24
Sanborn to go with his bowl of Kellogg's Corn Flakes and Daisy donuts
she arrived in the kitchen.
"Owen, I want to speak with you."
"Please, not now Nina, I'm late for work."
As he reached for his coffee mug, she reached over and pulled the
mug away from him. This was a very bold move.
"What do you think you're doing?" He said as he stared at her with
astonishment.
"I am tired of you eating this junk and being cranky afterwards. You
are not going to do this to me anymore."
"What do you mean, doing this to you? I'm just trying to eat my
breakfast."
He reached for his coffee a second time but she grabbed his arm.
"Not anymore, you're not."
Under normal circumstances, Owen kept his temper in check but this
early morning attack before coffee finally took its toll. He shoved her
backward with enough force to throw her off balance and she landed in a
heap in the corner. A wave of pain and self-pity washed over her as she
burst into tears. He immediately regretted his action but he also knew
there was nothing he could say or do that would undo what was done. He
finished his coffee, picked up his coat and left the house.
For several days, Nina stayed in bed and received sympathy from us
until the pain and self-pity faded away and she resumed her parental
responsibilities. The wounds healed but the incident remained in her
memory and she never pushed him that hard again.
25
Educate Me
By age 14, I had graduated from Sacred Heart School and entered
Larkspur High School on Elm Street. My teachers changed from black
habited nuns devoted to Jesus, to ordinary men and women in civilian
clothes with no religious agenda. I still attended religious education
(CCD) classes on Monday afternoons with our new teacher "Kevin", but
Kevin turned out to be a likeable, if simpleminded foot soldier for the
Church, so eventually I lost interest in what he had to say.
As a catholic student in non-catholic high school, I soon discovered
that my science and biology teachers offered a different view of the
world that what I learned from the nuns. When Mr. Duncan introduced
the theory of Evolution, he put me squarely between two opposing belief
systems. On one side, Nina and the Church claimed that a powerful
Being called "God", had created the universe in seven days. On the other
side my General Science instructor, Mr. Duncan and the scientific
community, said the universe was an explosion of energy that happened
billions of years ago - the Big Bang Theory. Neither explanation made
much sense to me at the time. I had no idea what the word "energy"
meant – but the "Bang" idea appealed to me more than the Creator God
story. On a clear night, I could look out into space and see this explosion
still in progress.
The Catholic theologians based their argument on something called
faith, which I was supposed to manufacture on my own or acquire from
reading the Bible. I understood that the Catholic Church relied on the
story of Jesus and his miracles to justify their authority. So far, I had not
met Jesus or God but I had witnessed "miracles" happening all around
me, every day. This dilemma was beginning to worry me.
The theory of Evolution relied heavily on fossils - the bones of
animals that had come and gone from the earth. It also used carbon
dating to determine the age of the bones and rocks. I did not understand
how carbon dating worked but I found it intriguing.
The clash between these two descriptions of reality, both competing
for my soul, put stress on my nerves.
The new high school environment forced me to think in new ways. It
not only challenged my grammar school beliefs, it also offered me more
freedom. In parochial school, we all sat at the same desk, in the same
room, with the same teacher, for the entire school year right up through
the eighth grade. At Larkspur High, I moved from room to room for each
subject. In the morning, I could socialize in the halls before the bell rang,
26
and in the study periods, I could work on my own. I could also leave the
building on my own at the end of classes.
This new freedom brought a change in my behavior.
One fall afternoon I walked home from school feeling proud of my
grown-up high school status. When I walked through the door, I decided
to announce my presence to Nina with a different type of greeting.
"Hi ma, what's happening?" As I waited for her to respond, I failed
to notice an ominous look in her face.
"How dare you talk to me that way," she said in a low threatening
voice.
"What do you mean?"
"You know perfectly well what I mean," She set down her iron and
approached me with her hand raised to slap me.
As I held up my arm in defense and backed away, she said, "Don't
you dare raise your hand to me!"
"Why are you doing this?" I said in dismay.
"You are showing me attitude, mister, and I won't stand for it!"
"I thought you would be happy that I'm growing up!" I replied with
increasing anxiety.
"I am not one of your friends. I am your mother, and I will not
tolerate your rude manner! Do you understand?"
She tried harder to hit me until I stopped trying to avoid her and
allowed her to land a few slaps. That seemed to calm her down.
"Now, I want you to start all over again. Go outside and come in
with a respectful attitude – the way I taught you."
I did as she asked and the atmosphere of hostility cooled.
"That's better. Now, how was school today?" She said with a smile.
"It was fine. I need to do some homework."
I retreated to my room and lay on my bed for a while to think over
what had happened. Her violent reaction convinced me that I would have
to watch myself around her in the future if I wanted to avoid more
trouble.
One of my favorite teachers, Miss Whittier, who taught biology
explained to her students one day that, "The more you learn about life,
the more mysterious it becomes."
Her room contained a 50-gallon tank filled with fish, algae, snails,
and plants surrounded by cabinets full of preserved life forms in jars and
cases. Biology became my favorite class until she required us to
27
memorize the biological order of life forms and later the individual parts
of each one. This game of breaking down organisms into smaller and
smaller pieces became a never-ending task that began to destroy my
interest in the natural sciences. I achieved good grades but I never used
any of the knowledge I struggled so hard to learn. Near the end of the
course, the chloroforming and dissecting of frogs seemed to me a cruel
and unnecessary practice. I began to realize that I could learn anything
but the question was – what did I want to learn?
Mr. Lambert was another favorite teacher who taught Chemistry - a
subject I could never quite grasp. The idea that everything was made of
tiny, invisible particles called atoms that nobody could see was too much
of a stretch for my imagination. The periodic tables, the chemical
formulas, the mole theory, electrons orbiting the nucleus, matter and
energy transfers – all of it was conceptual and beyond the reach of my
simple brain. Like Catholic Doctrine, it required blind faith as opposed to
direct seeing.
Mr. Lambert was a tall thin Englishman with receding black hair
combed straight back. He had a narrow face with a jutting chin and blue
intelligent, humorous eyes. In his favorite pep talk he urged us to develop
a "where's the horse attitude," a joke about a man who told his son he
was going to give him a gift. The man took his son out to the barn and
showed him a pile of horse manure in the stall and the boy immediately
inquired, "Where's the horse?"
My slow-moving but persistent brain puzzled over the meaning of
this for thirty years before I finally "got it" while walking down a street
in Ross, California.
Miss Johnson, who taught freshman English, was Mr. Lambert's
opposite. She was a prickly spinster who embraced her subject with
passion but remained, I thought, cold and distant from her students.
She used the novel "Silas Marner" as the class project – first to read,
then to examine in detail for the theme and the grammatical structure. I
had already read an impressive number of books from the library but I
discovered I was a moron when it came to analyzing the books and
learning the rules of grammar. With great difficulty, I began to
understand that the rules of grammar are a blueprint for how we perceive
reality – beginning with subject, verb and direct object. I also discovered
during the course that I detested English novels, for no apparent reason.
Miss Johnson knew everything in her course backwards and
forwards including the "correct" answers to go with her questions. My
job was to learn those answers and write them down on her exams, which
I did.
28
My next teacher was Mr. Anderson, the algebra instructor. Mr.
Anderson was a tall, well built, football coach who introduced me to the
world of unknown quantities. The molecules and chemical bonds from
Mr. Lambert's class now became symbols and equations that represented
more unknown quantities. To make matters worse the unknowns became
variable!
As Mr. Anderson wrote these strange hieroglyphs on the board I
wrote them down in my notebook with no idea of their purpose or why I
should learn them; instead, I wanted to know who invented them and
why.
My high school curriculum rounded out with History, Geography,
Economics, Physics, Government, Sociology, Latin, and Physical
Education - none of which I used later on in life. At one point, I began to
wonder if school was a babysitting institution that taught us to absorb,
regurgitate, and eventually forget, knowledge we could find simply by
opening a book or going online.
Having said that, it is also true that the classroom is the best way to
inspire and motivate large numbers of people to live and work together
as a community.
By the time I graduated, I was weary of high school, even though I
had performed above average work and enjoyed the experience. The
curriculum, however, disappointed me in its failure to offer the kind of
knowledge I considered important. I had stored a great deal of
information that did not add up to anything. It did not explain my
existence and it left me with the feeling that the entire educational system
had missed the mark or lacked consciousness or something that I could
not put into words.
I reasoned that if the body of knowledge offered in school was
relevant, it should have raised my consciousness and made sense of
everything; instead, it added more pieces to the puzzle. When I
graduated, I felt no closer to understanding what life was all about than
when I graduated from Parochial school.
In the summer of 1963, an event occurred which challenged my
belief in a compassionate and loving God. One of my high school
classmates, Patricia Johnson, took a shortcut along a well-known path
through the Crystal Lake watershed. On this particular morning, she met
someone who attacked her and strangled her. Her killer left her lying in
the field where her father and a police officer found her, hours later.
This kind of brutality simply did not happen in our community and
the incident frightened me into sleeping inside for the remainder of the
29
summer. The police questioned her boyfriend and released him for lack
of evidence.
Years later, I developed a theory that a serial killer like Ted Bundy
may have passed through town, spotted Patricia, and followed her into
the field. Afterwards, he simply returned to his car and drove away with
a piece of jewelry or clothing as a trophy for his collection.
In the middle of March 1965, my brother, Roger, and I decided to
bust loose from winter's grip and head for the State of Florida. Roger had
just received his driver's license and purchased a white, '57 Chevy with
his earnings as an attendant at the Larkspur State Hospital. Early one
morning we filled a styrofoam ice chest with milk, ice, and the
ingredients for making sandwiches and headed south on Interstate 95.
We planned to reach New Jersey by sundown. After dark, we crossed the
George Washington Bridge, which glowed like a Christmas tree beneath
the full moon.
Roger continued to drive south until we reached North Carolina
where we stayed overnight in a motel. The next morning we drove all the
way to Florida past Daytona Beach, Fort Lauderdale, and the City of
Miami. The environment had magically changed from the snow and cold
of Vermont to Florida sunshine and the first palm trees I had ever seen.
Miami was beautiful to see after dark when the warm glow of the
nightlife lit up the sky.
As seductive as we found Miami, our vacation was only one week
long and we each had $200 in traveler's checks to last us until we got
home. We left Miami and head south toward the Everglades and the
Florida Keys. By 11 p.m., we pulled off the road in the Mangrove
Swamp and flipped a coin to see who slept outside the car. I lost and
ended up in my sleeping bag on the roof. I was afraid to sleep on the
ground in alligator country but the sloping roof left me with a painful
backache the next morning.
After a short ride south to catch a glimpse of Key Largo, we turned
west on Route 41 and then north on Interstate 75. When we arrived in St.
Petersburg, we located a room in a quaint little hotel for forty dollars a
day.
St. Petersburg is a lovely city with plenty of sunshine, flowers, and
beaches. We both rented scooters and drove around the first day, to see
all the wonderful sites. In the evening, I went for a walk as the late
afternoon sun sank into the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. As I
wandered through the streets, I watched the setting sun cast a reddish
30
glow over the Art Deco paintings on the pink stucco walls of shops and
restaurants.
By 9 p.m., I returned to the hotel where Roger and I watched
television before we crawled into our beds. I remained awake in that
hotel room and I listened to the sound of an occasional car pass in the
warm Florida night. I marveled at how easy it was to travel far from
home and manage everything quite well. It boosted my self-confidence.
The next morning we left St. Petersburg and headed north but now
we took our time driving back to Vermont.
On the ride back home, I thought about our trip and I decided that
reading books and listening to classroom lectures about the world is not
the same as direct experience. When we arrived home, I observed that
everything was the same as we had left it; the only change that occurred
was within the two of us.
Over the years, Nina had made me save money from the paper route
and odd jobs I performed for the neighbors until I had enough to
purchase my first car. After I graduated from Larkspur High, she spotted
a gold 1957 Mercury Meteor at Stanley Motors for $800. The vehicle
was a Ford Motor Company product with 30,000 miles on the odometer,
a red interior in perfect condition, and a flawless exterior finish. She let
me withdraw $800 from my account and the car was mine.
That summer I began to spend my evenings in the driveway, playing
the radio and watching the stars come out overhead. During this period
of waiting to get my license, Frank Fredette's mother, Yvette, introduced
me to her niece, Eileen. She was a pretty, eighteen year old French girl,
with black hair and brown eyes and hoping to meet a nice Catholic boy. I
was interested in girls but I had no experience with dating and no selfconfidence.
At the time of the introduction, I had no license, so our parents
chaperoned us on our first few dates. I was thrilled to have a girlfriend to
go with my new car and after I passed my driving test, we began to go
for rides on the weekends. For the next six months, everything went well.
We attended movies, dances, and nightclubs. On Sunday afternoons, we
drove along country roads, chatted, and listened to music on the radio.
One Saturday night in January, we drove to Boston Garden to see the
Ice Follies. Everything went as planned but on the way home, I lost my
way in the fast-moving turnpike traffic and made several wrong turns.
When I finally got my bearings straight, it was one o'clock in the
morning.
At this late hour there was virtually no traffic on the road and in my
haste to make up for lost time, I drove faster than usual. At one point, I
31
came up behind another car moving slower than I was and I decided I
needed to go around this vehicle. I accelerated and started to pass but the
driver in the other car also decided to speed up to keep me from getting
ahead. If I had it to do over again, I would have dropped back behind the
other driver but at that moment, I just wanted to get home as quickly as
possible. I pushed the speedometer to ninety and the two of us went side
by side over the top of the next hill. The other driver decided it wasn't
worth dying over and let us have the road. Afterwards, I wondered how
many other teenagers had followed that same impulse and ended up in
the morgue.
After six months, I finally consummated my relationship with Eileen
with a kiss on her waiting lips. This marked the beginning of a new life
for me. I would pick up Eileen every weekend, drive somewhere for a
good time, and then do some kissing afterwards. I was perfectly happy to
continue this routine indefinitely without realizing that Eileen wanted
more.
One Saturday night after what seemed like hours of embracing and
kissing, my lips were sore and my interest in her had waned. At that
point, she whispered in my ear, "I love you." This led to a moment of
embarrassing silence in which I tried to think of something to say.
Finally, she whispered, "do you love me"? That question started me
thinking, did I really love her? The only thing I felt at that moment was
sore lips, which posed a problem because if I lied, and told her I loved
her I could cause her emotional damage later on.
In looking back on that moment I should have stalled and said, "I
don't know what love is" and kept the game going a little longer. Instead,
I said, "I like you a lot, but I don't love you."
I had enough sense to shut up after that but it was the turning point
in our relationship. After we untangled ourselves, she began to behave
differently toward me. She agreed to more dates but I sensed the magic
was gone and I began to destroy whatever feelings she had left for me
with my increasingly erratic behavior.
In my inexperienced teenage reasoning, I did not understand that
Eileen wanted love, marriage and children. I was not born for that kind
of life; instead, I was searching for something I could not find. Part of me
knew our relationship had run its course but the other part of me could
not let go; instead, I continued to embarrass both of us by asking for
more dates. Finally, she had the courage to break the hold I had on her and I was flabbergasted.
"Why?"
"I don't want to talk about it."
32
"Why not?"
"I'm sorry, I just don't. Goodbye." She hung up the phone.
I waited a few weeks before I tried again only to receive the same
answer.
After a year of making a fool out of myself and causing her more
pain, I finally gave up.
The autumn of 1966 brought more changes. I had reached the age of
18 when I believed I could run my own affairs and I no longer wanted
Nina telling me what to do. I had rented an apartment in Westminster,
Massachusetts and worked part time as a floor boy and checkout clerk at
Stop & Shop Supermarket. At the same time, I attended classes at
Fitchburg State College, which kept me driving back and forth between
Westminster and Fitchburg.
The high marks I had received in grammar school and the B average
I maintained in high school now plunged into the low C's. I had reached
my limit for cramming knowledge into my brain with no idea of what I
wanted to do with it. In desperation, I tried to explore different areas of
study, such as Psychology, Forestry and Philosophy, in search of a way
to make a living.
My anxiety reached the crisis stage when the college administrators
moved classes into the auditorium and use television monitors to deliver
the lectures. In this new learning environment, I was supposed to take
notes from a black and white image on a closed circuit TV monitor.
I thought it might help if I moved to the front row of the auditorium,
where I would feel less alienated from the teacher and the learning
process. In the end, I memorized the material through repetition and I
managed to pass the midterms but my interest in earning a college degree
began to fade away.
Dropout
By February, the midwinter blues set in and I lost my desire to
absorb academic knowledge. I continued to read the textbooks and use a
yellow magic marker to emphasize paragraphs I thought were important
but I could no longer remember what I had read. My brain refused to
store the information or turn the words into meaning. At that point, I felt
I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown so I began to cut classes and
take long walks around the campus to relieve the pressure. Later, I went
for long drives through the countryside to relax and let myself free fall.
One day on a stroll through downtown Fitchburg, my eyes came to
rest on a recruiting sign for the U.S. Navy outside the Post Office. On an
33
impulse, I entered the lobby and found literature, which I stuffed into my
jacket pocket. When I drove back to the campus I decided to go to the
student lounge and look for someone with whom I could share my
situation.
The lounge was full of students that sat at the tables, smoking
cigarettes, eating snacks and talking with one another while other
students nearby quietly studied. I had hoped for some music but the
lounge stereo was out of commission.
A member of my creative writing class, David Garfield, sat alone at
one of the tables, smoking a Marlboro.
"Hi Dave, mind if I sit down?"
"Sure." He nodded toward the chair.
"What's up?" he said, as he focused his eyes on me through his thick
glasses. Dave was an "older" student, close to thirty years, whose opinion
I respected.
"I've done a lot of thinking lately and I have decided to quit college,"
I said to him.
His eyes lit up with interest.
"Really? What brought that on?" he said, as he leaned over and
crushed out the cigarette in the metal ashtray.
I explained to him my difficulties with the curriculum.
"I can't keep up with the volume of material and I hate the subjects
I'm taking."
He nodded with understanding.
"Sometimes you have to accept things you don't like" he replied.
"What will you do now?"
"I don't know. Take a vacation – maybe join the Navy."
I saw his eyes wince at the word, "Navy." He shook his head slowly
from side to side.
"You don't want to join the Navy," he said.
"Why not?"
"Because it's a bad idea. You won't like it."
"How do you know?"
"Because I was in it for four years."
His words shocked me. I never imagined he would tell me my way
out of my dilemma was a bad idea.
He gently tapped his index finger on the table.
"This is the best place for you to escape the Vietnam War. If you
quit now they'll ship you off to Vietnam."
He leaned back and stretched as I wondered what to say. Suddenly
he stood and picked up his books from the table.
"I've got to go to class. Are you coming?"
34
I shook my head.
"Well, good luck, Nick." He held out his hand and I shook it.
"See you later."
I watched him disappear through the doorway as more students
entered the lounge. For several moments, I sat and wondered what he
knew that I did not know. I believed my plan made perfect sense.
In spite of Dave's warning, I had already decided to quit college and
try a different path. I had already received probation notices, which
further convinced me to drop my academic career. I had no girlfriend and
Nina and I had a shaky relationship. I pulled the literature out of my
jacket pocket and began to read about a life of travel and adventure with
the U.S. Navy.
January 24, 1968 was the kind of day that delights winter-weary
New Englanders. A layer of warm air drifted in from the south after a
light carpet of snow left the landscape fresh and clean. By noon, the sun's
rays began to melt the snow and release the faint aroma of bare earth.
The intoxicating mood known as "spring fever" settled over the campus.
I sat outside Thomson Hall and soaked up the sunshine along with a
group of other students. As I considered the possibility of never attending
another class, I wondered if today was the day I would begin a new life.
All I had to do was remain seated on the steps as my classmates entered
the building and then follow the instructions in the brochure. As one by
one, the students went inside and left me alone on the steps, I decided to
take the plunge.
A half hour later I sat in the recruiter's office and discovered that
signing up for military service was fun and easy. The recruiter was a
good-looking young man in his late twenties who greeted me with
enthusiasm and made me feel right at home. I felt as though I had made
his day as he passed me the papers to sign and chatted about his travel
experiences. The contract he offered me was a 120-day cash program
that ended with an automatic promotion to E-2 when I finished boot
camp. Under the terms of my contract, I would report for active duty at
the end of May.
I had no idea what he was talking about but it sounded like an
increase in rank and salary the moment I reported for duty. We shook
hands and I walked outside the building with a feeling that at last I had a
plan and a purpose.
I now had four months ahead of me with nothing to do except find a
job to fill in the gap. Roger had quit his job earlier at the Gardner State
Hospital to enter Maryknoll Seminary and I thought I could put in an
application and use him as a reference. I figured my chances of finding a
35
temporary position as an attendant were good and they would hire me
immediately.
The State Hospital grounds consisted of open fields and surrounded
by forest, a garden and a number of large concrete buildings, some with
bars on the windows. My closed ward consisted of "chronics" - men who
failed to develop normally and could not function in society.
A typical day on the ward began with the arrival of the a.m. crew
that awakened the residents for showers and breakfast. After breakfast,
we collected the dirty dishes and sent them back to the kitchen on the
dumb waiter- a small elevator. After breakfast, the television and radios
came on, followed by the usual haggling over pipe tobacco and
cigarettes. After that came the card playing, and the endless parade
around the room. The television and radios provided background noise to
go with the periodic requests for a light of someone's cigarette.
The LPN (licensed practical nurse) arrived at mid morning to
dispense the meds and check under the tongues to be sure no one spit out
the pills. After lunch, everyone took a nap and upon awakening, repeated
the same routine of smoking tobacco, playing cards and walking in
circles around the room, interrupted by an occasional altercation. The
chronics did not go outside the ward for recreation; they stayed inside
where we could keep an eye on them.
During the first week, I was afraid that one of these odd characters
would attack me but I soon discovered that in spite of their mental and
physical deformities, they were, for the most part, harmless,
institutionalized men. I had stumbled into one of the easiest and least
challenging jobs on the market.
During the second month, I made friends with another male
attendant named Don who invited me to an all night card game on the
hospital grounds. I had rented a room myself on the grounds so it was
easy to accept the invitation and get to know the other attendants. On this
particular Friday night, we sat around a table, drank plum brandy and
played poker.
The next morning I awakened with a terrible headache and no
memory of what happened after we began to play cards. When I stood in
line at the cafeteria for breakfast, I discovered the ten-dollar bill I had in
my wallet was missing. Later, when I checked with my new friend Don,
he claimed I lost it playing poker. I did not believe him but I could not
prove it otherwise. The fact that I had blacked out and lost my hard
earned cash in a game of poker convinced me to stay clear of Don and
his alcohol-fuelled card games in the future.
36
The only other memorable event that happened between January and
the end of May was the look on Nina's face when I told her I had joined
the Navy.
"What did you do that for?" she said, flabbergasted at the news.
"Because it's time for me to get out on my own. Besides, I am not
happy in school. I need a break." I decided not to mention that I had
flunked my college courses.
"Why didn't you tell us you needed help? Owen said. "We could
have helped you."
"How?"
"I don't know. We could have thought of something."
The conversation continued, as they got used to the idea that I was
leaving for good. I enjoyed a rare moment of power for my own
decisions instead of listening to Nina's nagging voice telling me what to
do. I figured she would be thrilled that I was out of her house so she
could finally have it all to herself - except for Owen.
37
Breaking Away
In the third week of May 1968, I quit my attendant's job at the State
Hospital. Owen took the morning off from work to drive me the hour and
a half long trip to Boston for my physical. This was the first time he and
I traveled alone, and I realized how well we got along without Nina
present.
As we cruised down Route 2, I brought up the subject of her recent
spiritual vision and asked him for his opinion. Nina claimed she saw
Mary, the Mother of Jesus, appear before her as she prepared a meal in
the kitchen. As she witnessed the miracle, Owen sat a few feet away,
eating his breakfast. Afterwards, she felt this experience was a sign of
her impending sainthood. I asked him if he had noticed anything unusual
at the time and he said no. His answer supported my belief that her vision
of Mary had arisen inside her own head.
After we arrived at the Naval Induction Center, we shook hands and
he wished me luck. On that happy note, I went into the building and
checked in at the desk. The male petty officer stamped my papers and
pointed to a long line of young men in their underwear, waiting for
physical exams and inoculations. I was supposed to remove most of my
clothes, store them in a locker and get in line. For the next several hours
the doctors poked, prodded, and checked everyone for medical problems
before they injected us with serum from a high-pressure needle gun. As
this went on, I wondered what kind of doctor would be willing to repeat
this examination five hundred times a day. It made medicine appear less
glamorous.
At the end of the day, I boarded a bus back to Larkspur and waited
for the Navy to contact me. Within a week, I received a packet in the
mail with an airline ticket to Chicago and a sheet of instructions. This
time dad drove me to the bus depot where I boarded a bus to the airport
in Boston. It was my first flight on a plane – a plane that flew halfway
across the country in two and a half hours. The plane landed at O'Hare
International Airport in Chicago and from there I boarded a shuttle bus
with a group of other young men headed for the Recruit Training Center
at Great Lakes
It was late afternoon when we stepped off the bus and lined up in
front of the gate. A uniformed petty officer instructed us to follow him to
the dining hall for dinner. After we ate, we followed him to another
building where we entered a room half-full of recruits. Over the next two
hours, we listened to instructions from more petty officers who explained
38
what they expected from us over the course of the training program. As
the talks continued, the sunlight faded from the windows and gave the
room a shadowy atmosphere. The scene reminded me of how I felt
sitting around a campfire with the Boy Scouts.
At 10 p.m., we left the building and marched to our temporary
overnight barracks in another building. Early the next morning, after
chow we marched through a series of checkpoints where other recruits
handed us clothing and equipment we would need for the next twelve
weeks. The program proved exciting so far and I was glad I had signed
up.
Our new leader, a company commander, introduced himself as firstclass Boatswain's Mate, Mister. Bryant. This black-haired man whose
accent and features reminded me of Tommy Lee Jones was supposed to
discipline forty, racially mixed, high school dropouts and petty criminals.
I liked my new boss immediately and decided to give him my full
cooperation. His assistant, however, a third class petty officer, also with
a southern accent, named Virgil, was a different story. He had a sweet
boyish face that hid a cold, nasty personality. On my first attempt to
make friends he delivered a verbal slap down and a warning that he
would not tolerate any shit from any of us. Our training program had
begun.
Virgil awakened us at five the next morning to clean the barracks
and begin our first classes. The program included drill formations to
build team spirit, ship communications, military etiquette, physical
fitness and shipboard procedures like gas attack and firefighting.
Between classes, we stood at attention for long periods on the "grinder",
the tar surface that surrounded our barracks. In the first few weeks, the
temperature hovered in the seventies and eighties but as July approached,
the temperature soared into the nineties.
To add to my burden, the company commander decided to put me in
charge of the company because I had completed two semester of college.
I quickly demonstrated to everyone that college credits did not a leader
make and he reluctantly chose another man to take my place. At first, I
felt humiliated but after I watched the next appointee begin to buckle
under the strain, I saw it as a lucky break. As the weeks passed however,
the pressure from the training program and the isolation from the outside
world began to squeeze my nerves to the breaking point. For the first
time I began to regret my decision.
The purpose of boot camp is to convert human beings into obedient
androids. This happens gradually through physical and mental pressure.
The training slowly breaks down one's personal identity and replaces it
with a machine that follows orders.
39
One day, during a marching exercise, our company passed a column
of men who stood out from the rest of us. Their marching was sloppy
and their expressions revealed attitude. These young men were the
"fuckups" who could not pass the tests or had rebelled against the
instructors. They would remain in the training program until they
changed their attitude or received a bad discharge. The sight of these
men scared me and I realized how much worse my situation could
become if I tried to resist.
Boot camp is a game of hurry up and wait that tests an individual's
patience and endurance. Mistakes and failures lead to more pushups and
more training. When we received the order to hurry, we had to run.
When we received orders to wait, we had to remain at silent attention in
the hot sun, for extended periods
After eight weeks of physical and mental stress, I finally lost it one
day and I began to weep uncontrollably in front of everyone. The
Company Commander who had been reporting our progress stood over
me and said, "What's the problem?"
"I don't know, sir."
He remained silent and tried to think of something to say. Finally, he
placed his hand on my shoulder and said, "Just take it easy son. You'll be
okay."
"Yes sir."
He continued to read off the marks given to us by the barracks
inspectors. As the minutes passed, I began to feel better. At the same
time, I noticed everyone seemed to loosen up and Mr. Bryant hinted that
we were doing "ok."
A few days later, I found the courage to ask him if we could have a
radio in the barracks and to my surprise, he agreed. I was shocked at how
easy it was to get the radio just by asking and that he was unaware we
did not have one. It was also a tremendous relief after months of isolation
to have the familiar sounds of the outside world back in our lives.
Three days prior to graduation, someone left the door to the office
unlocked and the payroll disappeared. It seemed that even in this place of
tight security and moral discipline thieves will ply their trade.
On the morning of graduation, someone in the company decided it
was necessary to fill my shoes with Gillette shaving cream. I was so
happy that boot camp was over that I did not care.
The graduation ceremony brought a feeling of achievement and
relief. Through this new experience, I had made new friends, discovered
my weak and strong points and had an opportunity to explore downtown
Chicago on my first weekend liberty.
40
On the plane ride home, I noticed Derek Baxter and Keanu Ritchie
seated in front of me and I told them how great it felt to graduate and
move on to the next duty station. Both of them turned around and looked
at me as if I was crazy.
Derek said, "You know what, Jordan; you really are a stupid jerk. I
hadn't quite made up my mind if you were faking it or actually believed
in all that bullshit back there. Now I know it's true. You want to know
something else? I don't want you talking to me anymore, so screw you."
He turned around and continued to drink from his little bottle of
vodka. I decided to keep quiet for the duration of the flight.
San Diego
I spent the week between boot camp and my next duty station at
home trying to cram in as much fun as I could. Nina stoically accepted
my visit with a motherly hug and detailed instructions on where I should
put my clothes and when I should come home at night, etc.
Unfortunately, my twelve weeks of discipline had built up a wall of
resentment against people telling what to do. I could easily figure things
out for myself if she would please just get out of my way. This was the
first time I sensed she no longer knew how to control me. Between her
well-intentioned smothering and my poorly concealed resentment, we
were an unhappy twosome.
By this time, I was twenty years of age, which made it difficult for
Nina to punish me when I argued with her. When she also discovered
that I did not intend to accompany her to church every morning, she
settled for an uneasy truce.
At the end of the week, I took the bus back to Boston. This time the
plane headed for San Diego where I had orders to attend Hospital Corps
School at Balboa Naval Hospital. The Marines fighting in Vietnam did
not have their own medics so they used the Navy corpsmen to treat their
wounded. In the recruiters office I had no idea what I had signed up for; I
simply wanted to escape from an unhappy life. Now I thought only of the
decadent lifestyle that awaited me in California.
My first view of the San Diego area from the plane was breathtaking.
Everything I saw below me was stunningly beautiful. When I stepped
off the plane, I found the tropical air, mild and dry.
I took the bus to the Naval Hospital and located the administration
building where the Officer of the Day processed my orders and briefed
me on where to go next. I asked him questions about protocol and found
out that almost everything I learned in boot camp was now worthless.
41
"Just salute commissioned officers and warrant officers – the men
and women with gold bars on their shoulders," he said.
I accepted the map of the base he gave me and headed for a pink
stucco building at the bottom of the hill. On the way down, I saw a
bridge under construction that connected Coronado Island with the
mainland.
When I reached the barracks, I discovered I was not the only recruit
to arrive for Hospital Corp School. The building was already full of
young men running around in their skivvies (underwear), taking showers,
ironing uniforms, getting acquainted with one another or relaxing on
their bunks, listening to music.
I located the man in charge, Pete Harris, another southerner with the
weight of responsibility showing in his face. Unlike, Virgil my old
adjutant, the new boss behaved in a very cordial and helpful manner. He
told me to sign in and choose my bunk, take a shower and report to him
afterwards. A short time later, a big fellow named Boz Sherman
assembled everyone and explained the rules of the barracks. This time,
jokes and laughter accompanied the announcements. When I went to
sleep that night, I knew that life had taken a positive turn.
Compared with the depressing world of boot camp, Hospital Corps
School at San Diego Naval Hospital was a dream come true. The base
was a tropical paradise of palm trees, mild temperatures and plenty of
sunshine. On Monday, we began classes on Anatomy, Physiology, First
Aid, Chemistry and Pharmacology.
The courses alternated between classroom instruction and orientation
in the O.R. (Operating Room) and Pathology (the Morgue). Unlike my
college experience, the school offered small classes and personal
attention. One teacher in particular reminded me of Captain Kangaroo
with a big golden mustache and squinty eyes. He could have fit perfectly
into a bar scene, telling dirty jokes to a crowd of drunken sailors. He
promised to tell us some of his choicest stories as the days and weeks
went by, but he never did.
A female instructor, Miss Dion, made me curious me one day when
she expressed concern over life insurance policies offered to the recruits.
I did not know that many of my classmates would die or suffer severe
injuries in Vietnam.
Another instructor, Lt. Jim Howard treated us with genuine affection
if we were his own sons. Until I met this man, I did not realize how
important a relationship is between students and teachers for optimum
learning. The week before finals, he appeared in class, very upset. We
42
had done poorly on his last test, a failure that threatened our graduation
and his fitness as an instructor.
He explained how serious the low marks were and blamed both
himself and us for the failure. This was the first time I felt sorry for a
teacher and understood his position. We returned to the barracks that
night and worked as a group to relearn the material. The next day we
took the test over and passed with high marks.
The weekend before graduation, our company went on liberty.
Everyone made it back in time for the Monday morning inspection with
the exception of a Mexican recruit named Jose Martinez. Martinez took
the bus to Tijuana on Friday evening to celebrate his graduation. He
spent or lost all his money on prostitutes and bar hopping and failed to
make it back in time. When he did arrive, he could hardly stand and
several volunteers had to work fast to clean him up for inspection. When
the inspecting officer arrived, he managed to stand up straight long
enough to pass.
When the four month course finally ended, I graduated somewhere
in the middle of the group. The cash program under which I enlisted in
January boosted me to an E-3 pay grade, and put three-stripes beneath a
medical symbol (caduceus) on the left shoulder of my uniform. I also
received orders to attend Urology School but the course did not begin for
six months. In the interim period, hospital administration assigned me to
the Nursery.
While I enjoyed life in San Diego, my brother Roger changed his
mind about becoming a priest and joined the Army - or perhaps he was
drafted - I forget which. He became a medic stationed in Long Beach,
California and received orders to Vietnam. When he sent word that he
wanted me to visit him, I jumped at the chance to make the trip and see
more of California at the same time. The Hospital Administration gave
me permission to leave, so on a Saturday morning I took the bus from
San Diego to Long Beach, which lies on the outskirts of Los Angeles.
The bus ride north provided me with views of the country I had never
seen before. The late afternoon sun painted the California desert in gold.
By the time I arrived at the army base, it was nightfall and the
compound had a ghostly appearance under a full moon. I located Roger's
barracks and walked down a long line of green-blanketed beds before I
reached him standing beside his locker. We shook hands and talked for a
while. We remained on the base overnight but spent the weekend at the
beach and later visited the downtown area. On Monday, I boarded the
bus for San Diego and two weeks later, he boarded a plane for Vietnam.
43
When I returned to duty at the Naval Hospital, I reported to the
nursery. The staff was a mixture of men and women both civilian and
enlisted. I wore a blue work uniform to the ward where I changed into
green scrubs, washed my hands, put on sterile gloves, a mask and entered
the nursery.
The delivery room staff wheeled in the newborn babies in a bassinet
for us to clean up, weigh on a scale and measure with a measuring tape.
We took blood samples by pricking the newborn's heel followed by the
doctor examination. The doctor noted and treated any abnormalities such
as jaundice, illness or physical defects. After the doctor finished, we
administered injections, fed the infant, and changed the diapers. The
baby stayed in the nursery until the doctor pronounced it ready to go
home with its mother.
The night shift strained my internal clock but the relaxed atmosphere
of the ward made up for it. The nighttime hours offered peace and quiet
and opportunities for long conversations with other staff members.
Everyone was eager to get along and I was quick to learn the routine.
Around 4a.m., I hand-carried blood samples and medical files from
the nursery to the blood lab. The main hospital at the center of the base,
nicknamed "The Gray Ghost" was a labyrinth of clinics, wards, and
offices. The trip from the nursery to the lab took me through a breezy
courtyard, illuminated by spotlights. The moving shadows of palm leaves
on the cobblestones and the sea of stars overhead revived memories of
the summer nights I slept in the backyard.
When I pulled open the glass door to the lobby, a blast of air rushed
past me. The lobby offered me a choice of five elevators that would take
me to the fifth floor. Here I would hand over the specimens to the duty
technician and chat for a few minutes before I headed back to the
nursery.
When morning came, the magic of the night faded away. The a.m.
crew arrived and the streets below began to fill with Navy and civilian
personnel. After our supervisor brought the a.m. crew up to date on what
had happened during the night, the shift ended.
The Gray Ghost had a dining hall on the fourth floor where civil
service employees served breakfast. The excellent quality of food in the
dining hall always made mealtime a pleasure but the night shift
interfered with my usual habit of eating breakfast. After several bouts of
indigestion and irritability, I learned to skip breakfast, head straight to
bed and sleep until noon.
The other problem I had working the night shift was the sleeping
arrangement. The enlisted staff barracks was a single large room, divided
by open cubicles. I could not see my roommates but I could hear them as
44
they talked and played music. The a.m. crew had already left by the time
I arrived and the p.m. crew, would either leave for breakfast or stay for
inspection. After the inspection crew left, most of the p.m. crew went
back to bed.
People came and went constantly which made it difficult but
somehow I managed to get enough sleep. Strangely, it never occurred to
me to purchase earplugs or noise-blocking earmuffs.
Near the end of my tour of duty in the nursery, the entire staff
received orders to attend an important training meeting. Mrs. Jablonski,
our supervisor, had no choice but to leave one person in charge of
twenty-five infants. Since I had the least seniority, the job landed on me.
The supervisor stayed on her side of the ward with the preemies (the
premature birth babies) and I took care of the normal births on my side.
The assignment required me to give shots, take blood, feed and change
all twenty-five infants. The only problem I faced was the feeding process
since you cannot force a baby to drink faster from a bottle of milk. If you
try, the formula will end up on your scrubs; besides, the baby may begin
to cry and wake up all the other babies.
Halfway through the shift, I believed I would make it, when an
unscheduled birth took place in the Delivery Room and Mrs. Jablonski
had to leave to assist the doctor. When my co-workers returned hours
later, I had fed and changed all the babies but a numb feeling had crept
into my body. When I left the nursery, I walked stiffly and had difficulty
focusing on the world around me. When I reached the barracks and
reclined on my bunk, I was too stressed to fall sleep. After that
experience, I decided that having babies was a bad idea.
Before I moved on to Urology School, I made only one regrettable
error in my interaction with other staff members. I did not like the way
Greg Kelly administered injections to the newborns. I watched him as he
held the baby with his left arm and gripped the needle cap between his
teeth. When he twisted the syringe, the cap popped loose to expose the
needle and he injected the medicine into the baby's thigh. The trick
worked perfectly but it struck me as an unsterile procedure that placed
the needle within inches of his clenched teeth. I had to say something to
him about it.
"Say Zak, do you think that's a good idea?"
"What?"
"What you just did."
"What did I just do?"
"You used your teeth to pull the cap off the syringe."
"So, what's wrong with that?"
45
"It's unsterile technique. You contaminated the needle before using
it."
"No I didn't."
The other corpsman, Bill, came over and wanted to know what was
going on.
"He says I contaminated the needle by pulling off the cap with my
teeth."
Bill looked at me. "No it isn't," he said. "I do the same thing."
His voice was so matter of fact that I began to worry I would lose the
argument.
"What about Mrs. Jablonski? What's her feeling about this?" I said.
As they watched, I walked over to the preemie ward to ask Mrs.
Jablonski for her opinion. In the background, I could hear one of them
say, "Jeezes, don't make such a big deal out of it."
Mrs. Jablonski, listen to my complaint with patience and seemed to
agree with me but wanted to maintain friendly relations. After a few
more rounds of discussion, the matter remained unsettled and I decided
not to pursue it any further. After that episode, however, both of them
became less friendly to me and I realized I had accomplished nothing
with my good intentions.
Urology School
My six-month tour of duty in the nursery ended when the Urology
Department on the sixth floor of the Gray Ghost began a new class. The
class consisted of three people - Dave Williams, our civilian instructor,
Greg Johnson, and myself.
Dave began to train Greg and me to shoot x-rays, perform lab tests,
and assist in the operating room. Our staff urologists, the "dick doctors",
treated problems with the kidneys, ureters, bladder, urethra, prostate, and
seminal vesicles.
Those seminal vesicles cause me a small problem because I had
twenty years of Catholic doctrine hardwired into my brain. Catholic
theology declared vasectomies a sin against God and I was in a position
to refuse to participate on religious grounds. The conflict forced me to
confront my beliefs for the first time and I realized that I did not care if
men had their tubes tied; in fact, it made perfect sense. The decision to
end unwanted pregnancies was a decision between a man, his wife and a
surgeon. It was not the decision of those who made up the rules of the
Catholic Church.
46
The procedure took place under a local anesthetic and lasted about
one hour. The patient could leave the hospital immediately with
instructions to give his sex organ a few days off.
My experience in the operating suite, gave me the opportunity to see
inside human beings. I was curious about this because the Catechism told
me that a "soul" or "spirit" lived "inside" the body. Even Jesus had said,
"The Kingdom of Heaven is within you". To my disappointment, I saw
neither soul, nor spirit, nor the Kingdom of Heaven; instead, I saw only
flesh, bone, and blood. If indeed the soul, the spirit, and Heaven existed,
they remained beyond the range of my perception.
After I lost my curiosity about the mysteries inside the human body,
I experienced the tedium of standing beside surgeons for up to eight
hours at a stretch, passing surgical instruments. The most difficult part of
the job is trying to guess which threaded needle, hemostat, scissor or
retractor the doctor will ask for next. It always begins with the scalpel
and the "stats" but after that, it becomes tricky, depending on the
procedure. There is nothing more embarrassing to an instrument passer
than a reprimand from a surgeon after passing the wrong instrument or
passing it improperly.
If I was not learning surgical procedures in the Operating Suite in the
basement of the building, there was plenty to learn at the sixth floor
clinic.
A typical day in the Urology Department began with the arrival of
active duty personnel or their dependents. Whoever worked the front
desk would pull the old chart from records or prepare a new chart. Our
visitor took a seat and waited for one of the doctors to pick up the chart
and call him or her into his consulting room. The doctor examined our
patient and ordered tests, exams or x-rays. After that, he would prescribe
medicine, perform treatment or schedule surgery.
Urologists depend heavily on antibiotics to control urinary
infections. A few drops on a Petri dish will reveal the identity of the
invading bacteria within a few days and the antibiotic that destroys it.
Years later I found out that a quart or two of pure unsweetened cranberry
juice would miraculously rid the bladder of a urinary infection faster than
antibiotics.
Greg and I learned to inject a radioactive dye into the bloodstream
of our patients – a test known as an intravenous pyelogram or IVP. The
radioactive dye appears white on x-ray film and reveals any
abnormalities in the urinary system. Another test called a cystogram
uses an irrigating syringe and rubber tube called a Foley catheter to fill
up the bladder with dye. The x-ray could reveal a condition called reflux,
47
which allows the urine to travel backwards up the ureters and into the
kidneys, causing irritation, enlargement, or infection.
The Urology Department had a private operating room in the
basement, which Greg and I learned to set up for surgical operations. We
had to scrub in, open up the instrument trays and pass the instruments to
the doctors. Afterwards we had to clean the instruments and repack them
for sterilization in a steam autoclave. The last step before we left was to
clean the room and the equipment.
The training I received in urology did not arouse my interest enough
to make it a career but it did provide me with valuable knowledge and
experience in the medical field. As we entered the final weeks, however I
developed attitude not only with instructor Dave, but also more seriously
with one of our new interns, Ensign Roderick, with whom I shared a
mutual dislike.
In this closed group of people, small problems become big problems
and soon Dave, who had put up my wisecracks, got word of my
altercation with the intern. This became an issue at the next meeting and
he explained to me that I could respect and obey those who outranked me
or I was out. I thought it over and realized I had no choice in the matter. I
made the necessary adjustments in my behavior and two weeks later, I
received my diploma.
Urology Technician
After graduation, Greg left Balboa Hospital for another duty station
and I remained behind to lighten the load of the senior technicians. Our
department chief, Ben Whipple, handed out the assignments on a duty
roster called the Plan of the Day. The technicians rotated between the xray department, the front desk, the lab, and the operating room. This
arrangement guaranteed we could relieve one another in any capacity. It
also eliminated the boredom of repetition.
As a fully trained technician, I could now pull the night watch. The
night watch was the worst part of the job because of the likelihood of an
emergency call in the middle of the night. A technician in the E.R. might
call at 2 a.m. with a client passing a kidney stone in agonizing pain, or a
victim with an enlarged prostate unable to urinate.
Another source of stress came from the doctors. Doctor Greenberg
once instructed me to pay closer attention to his surgical technique so I
could anticipate which instrument to pass before he asked for it. Sorry,
sir, no can do.
I was six months on the job when my brother Roger, and my future
sister-in-law, Carolann, decided to get married on Roger's R&R (Rest
48
and Recreation) from Vietnam. I caught a military hop from San Diego
to Oahu along with free meals and lodging at the Naval Base at Pearl
Harbor. The wedding took place in a lovely little chapel near the
rainforest and later I drove them around the island in a rental car to see
the Pearl Harbor monument, the Mormon temple, and Waikiki Beach.
I was disappointed with the undeserved reputation of Waikiki Beach
with its stone breakwater and tiny surf compared to the miles of
unspoiled beaches on the eastern shore of the island. The best beach to
visit for big wave action was Sunset Beach on the north end of the island.
When I returned to San Diego, I decided to make some changes in
my lifestyle. With a loan from the Navy Credit Union, I purchased a oneyear-old Suzuki X-6 Hustler motorcycle for five hundred dollars and
began to cruise the California freeways. With the wind streaming
through my hair at sixty miles per hour, I became the outlaw biker I had
enjoyed watching in the movies. My dream of creating an exciting new
life for myself in California was starting to become a reality.
One of the new people I met in my travels outside the base was
Michael Foster, a young Mormon from El Cajon. We shared a common
interest in motorcycles and spent one Sunday afternoon rolling along dirt
roads through cattle country twenty miles west of San Diego. The open
rangeland provided my first opportunity to cross the border into Mexico.
At one point, we came to a small town where Mexican children
surrounded us and stared in wonder at the Americans and their
fascinating motorcycles.
We entered a tiny variety store and bought two bottles of watermelon
soda, which tasted sweet but left an unpleasant aftertaste in my mouth.
We finished our drinks, said goodbye to the children and headed into the
setting sun, back to El Cajon and the Naval Hospital. At the freeway, we
parted company and I made it to the dining hall just moments before it
closed. As I ate the chow mein dinner that evening, I realized how much
I had enjoyed the ride into Mexico. I decided I would go back to El
Cajon and do it again.
The following weekend, when I tried to contact Michael he suddenly
became unavailable. He was very busy with church activities and since I
showed no interest in becoming a Latter Day Saint, I was no longer
welcome. I felt disappointed but there was no choice but to move on.
During one of my frequent visits to the Urology Ward, I met a
Japanese corpsman named Kim Kyoshi who lived in the San Diego area
and knew the best campgrounds in the area. We got together and spent
49
the weekend in a beautiful campground where we swam, explored the
trails and sunned ourselves on the beach.
On Saturday evening, I opened a bottle of 80 proof vodka and got
totally smashed. I do not remember anything I did after 8 p.m. The next
morning I woke up and realized that for the second time in my life I had
blacked out - lost consciousness from drinking hard liquor straight from
the bottle. This was a warning, which convinced me to change my
drinking habits.
Unfortunately, this was not the only mistake I made. At noontime,
we decided to pack up our gear and head back to San Diego. We were
half way there when I suddenly remembered I did not have Sunday off!
If I had paid closer attention to the schedule, instead of my own plans I
would have chosen a different weekend to go camping. Kim pulled over
at the next gas station and I called the clinic. Chief Whipple answered the
phone and told me he had already notified Hospital Security that I was
AWOL (absent without leave). The replacement technician, whose
Sunday I had ruined, was very pissed off. In fact, the two had spent the
day deciding what kind of punishment to impose on me when I returned.
On Monday, when I arrived at the clinic, I got an earful from
everyone in the department and I had to carry out extra work details. This
went on for the entire day until everyone was satisfied I had paid for my
mistake. Later, after serving a makeup weekend for the other technician,
I was in the clear.
By mid summer, my orders for a new duty station arrived - the Naval
Hospital in Corpus Christi.
For the remainder of the month I enjoyed myself with sunbathing,
swimming at the base pool, dancing and drinking at the enlisted club. I
had sold my motorcycle and most of my excess baggage in preparation
for my new life in the great state of Texass.
50
Corpus Christi Diary
In 1970, the Naval Hospital in Corpus Christi, Texas could be found
in the southwest corner of the Naval Air Station. The Navy built it during
WWII as a temporary structure but it remained in operation after the war.
A naval air station is the Navy's version of an Air Force base. It's a
training school for Navy pilots.
Corpus Christi had the same tropical weather and palm trees as San
Diego but the white wooden buildings on the base differed from the pink
Spanish stucco of Southern California.
The hospital compound consisted of strung out single-story buildings
with connecting ramps and sidewalks, most of them covered with
wooden canopies. I found the administration building and checked in at
the OOD's desk (the Officer of the Day). The corpsman on duty escorted
me to the enlisted barracks and helped me find a temporary room to store
my sea bag. Afterwards he directed me to the chow hall across the street,
for a meal of beans, franks, mixed vegetables, pie a la mode and a glass
of cold milk.
The sun began to drop toward the horizon when I returned to my
new residence. The hospital staff barracks on this base had a different
layout from the barracks in San Diego. The first floor contained a pool
table and eight rows of chairs lined up in front of a television. A dozen
corpsman in and out of uniform watched TV or played pool in a friendly,
relaxed atmosphere. Three of them came over to find out who I was and
to what department I belonged. I stayed in the recreation room until dusk
before I returned to my upstairs room.
As I dug through my sea bag, someone knocked on my door and
asked if I was the new arrival. As we shook hands, and exchanged
identities, I looked over my visitor, Brewster. He was a short, red haired,
young fellow with freckles and a pug nose – an Okie from Oklahoma,
judging by his accent. He explained to me the rules of the barracks.
"You can choose your own room but you have to keep it clean for
inspection," he said. "Lights out after 10 p.m. because the a.m. shift has
to get up early. No smoking or drinking in the building and stay out of
the petty officers quarters. The swimming pool is across the street and
the movie theater is on the main base, that-away," he added as he pointed
to the north.
"Any questions?"
"None that I can think of."
He started to turn away when I remembered something.
"Who is in charge of this place?"
51
"Nobody."
"Who is the Master at Arms?"
"That would be Tank, but he's easy. We never have any trouble
around here."
He waited a moment longer before he stuck out his hand.
"Well, gotta go. See you around."
We shook hands and he walked away.
After Brewster left, I took a tour of the building and found more
empty rooms. Apparently, I could choose any room I wanted and move
in. One corpsman had even barricaded off a section of an entire wing for
his private quarters.
I finally settle on a private room next to the head (the bathroom). I
opened the window to provide fresh air and enjoy a nice view of the
brightly lit canteen across the street. A full moon outlined the buildings
in a pale light and instilled in me a feeling of contentment. I finished
unpacking and tuned in some of the local radio stations before I turned in
for the night.
Sunday brought bright sunshine and a warm breeze from the Texas
panhandle. I ate breakfast at the chow hall and talked briefly with a few
of the other corpsman about the benefits of my new duty station. I
discovered the main base had a golf course, annex, swimming pool,
fishing pier, racquetball courts, and a canteen. The movies cost twentyfive cents and the popcorn cost ten cents a box. The theater ran a
different movie every night.
On Monday morning May 16, 1970, I arrived at my new job. The
Urology Department consisted of a waiting room, receptionist office,
bathroom, doctor's consulting room, exam room, and a linen closet.
Ripley (Rip) Axely HM2 (hospital corpsman second-class, E-5) and Lt.
Commander Medical Corps, Louis Lieberman (LCDR MC), staffed the
department. My job was to take over for Rip who had completed his
four-year contract with the Navy. He showed me around and explained
some of the tasks I would perform in the future.
Dr. Lieberman returned from an errand and we shook hands. He was
a tall, dark-haired Jewish physician with glasses and a snappy
professional manner - a very intense, efficient man that made me a little
nervous. Right away, he began to outline my responsibilities as his
assistant. I could feel a high-pressure relationship coming from this new
boss. As he spoke to me, I noticed Rip quietly walk away. One thing I
noticed about Rip - he appeared a bit shaky in his movements and I
wondered if he was having a problem with alcohol abuse.
52
For two weeks, I worked alongside the two of them and learned my
job. One day Rip failed to show up and I realized I was on my own.
The operation of the Corpus Christi clinic was the same as the one at
the Gray Ghost except for its size. Louis and I had our own room in the
operating suite with an x-ray machine and the necessary equipment for
exams and surgery. The first few moments of any procedure were the
toughest for Louis who was a perfectionist and wanted his assistant to be
one also. I had no problem learning the routine and memorizing details
but I lacked Louis' enthusiasm for the job. Instead, I was waiting for
something that would excite me and hold my interest. As the weeks
passed, however, I made fewer mistakes until we had a smooth operation
running between us.
Once I had learned my duties as a urology technician, I turned my
attention to the other departments in the hospital – Administration,
Emergency Room, Security, Red Cross and all the medical clinics.
Within a month, I had met almost everyone at the hospital.
One day Lewis called me into his office and told me he had received
a transfer to another duty station. I was not happy to hear this because I
had finally gotten used to Louis' idiosyncrasies and now I would have to
begin again with a new boss.
On a Friday afternoon in July, I was reading "Future Shock" by
Alvin Toffler, and waiting for the clinic phone to ring. Suddenly, the
door to the waiting room opened and a tall, good-looking man dressed in
commander's dress whites walked in and approached my desk. He had a
friendly, relaxed manner, which I found very appealing.
"Excuse me. I am looking for Dr. Lieberman. Is he in?"
"Yes sir, I'll get him right away," I said as I stood at attention.
"That won't be necessary. Just point me in the right direction."
"Yes sir. Down the hallway second door on the right."
"Thank you."
A moment later, he knocked on Louis' door and the two of them
greeted each other. Judging by the sound of their voices over the next
five minutes, they were pleased to see each other. A short time later, the
two of them returned.
"Nick, I want you to meet your new boss, Commander Clark," Louis
said in his loud and snappy tone.
"How do you do, sir," I said as we shook hands. I noted that my new
boss delivered the correct amount of hand squeeze.
"Dr. Lieberman tells me you are doing a good job."
"Thank you, sir."
53
At that moment, I wondered why he had never said that to me.
Perhaps I should have complimented him on what a good job he was
doing.
"Well, I've got to check in at the desk and get my family set up in
our new home. Be seeing you in a week or so," Commander Clark said
as he walked out the door accompanied by Louis. I returned to my book
reading and thought that maybe better times lay ahead.
Sunday May 24, 1970 marked two years of military service. My new
duty station provided opportunities I had only dreamed about in my dead
end college career. I now had my own clinic, a highly intelligent boss
with an easy temperament, and a private room in the barracks. The only
item I lacked was transportation.
A few months earlier, I had passed the third class petty officer's
exam and received another pay raise. This allowed me to obtain a loan
from the Credit Union and head straight to the Corpus Christi Datsun
dealer. The salesperson showed me a Datsun 510, a green, two-door
compact with a radio - and a price tag beyond my budget. I told him I
wanted it but I only had a $2,000 loan. To my surprise, he accepted my
offer.
I had never used a stick shift before and subsequently I drove it all
the way to the base in second gear. I could not figure out why it made
such a high-pitched whine. Later, Brewster showed me how to shift into
third and fourth gear.
As the proud owner of a new car, I could now begin to explore new
territory.
Not far from the base was Padre Island, a 90-mile long stretch of
sand dunes with very little wave action but plenty of Portuguese-Man-OWar. The colorful jellyfish has long stinging tentacles below the water
and an air-filled membrane above that acts as a sail for propulsion. After
a storm, these floating colonies of stinging cells would beach themselves
in large numbers on the shore – a situation that made swimming a risky
business. Contact with one of the long trailing stingers could turn a fun
day at the beach into a painful experience.
On a July 4th weekend, Padre Island became a huge traffic jam as
droves of people left the city to escape the heat. This was the worst time
to go there for recreation - when the water became as warm as the air and
the humid breeze provided no relief from the heat.
54
Smooth Sailing
My advancement to HM3 (E-4) forced me to move out of my private
room into the petty officer's quarters – a wing with the same open
cubicles as the enlisted barracks in San Diego. At the East end of the
wing, a closed in porch provided a quiet spot for Ron Buford, our couch
potato to settle in front of the television. The new quarters took away my
privacy but it also put me in closer contact with the other guys.
This was the smoothest period of my twenty years of life on the
planet. Beyond the daily routine of the clinic, my extra duties included
the Emergency Room, Hospital Security, and night duty at the OOD's
Desk. On these duty nights, I drove a gray Navy pickup truck around the
hospital grounds to look for anything suspicious and to check for doors
left unlocked after working hours.
The Emergency Room duty was the only part of the job where I felt
uncomfortable. Most of the visitors who showed up after regular clinic
hours had a URI - an upper respiratory infection or cold or pain in some
part of his or her body. The serious injuries that involved loss of blood
and broken bones were infrequent but when they did appear, they quickly
pushed my capacity for stress into the red zone. In spite of the training I
received in corps school, I had no direct experience treating human
beings in shock from bleeding, internal injuries or broken bones. It was
all carefully regulated classroom and textbook training.
My job was to take orders from the doctors and do nothing on my
own. As a result, I felt helpless under pressure and eager to get out of the
way and let somebody else take charge.
One night a man arrived by ambulance who could not pass water
(incontinent). He was trembling in agony but our duty doctor was with
another emergency and could not be in two places at once. Someone told
him I was a urology technician so he ordered me to catheterize the man
myself while he remained with his patient. In spite of my reluctance, I
went through the motions I had watched countless times while my body
shook and sweat formed on my brow. I managed to insert the Foley
catheter and drain the bladder into the bag. When I finished I knew I
could never make a career of this kind of work.
A year later, I was up for the second-class test when three new
corpsmen arrived in the barracks. One fellow who caught my interest
was a Mexican-American named Diego. He had brillo-pad black hair and
a huge black mustache but he spoke perfect English. His friendly open
manner and broad knowledge base made him an instant hit with me and a
55
few other corpsmen. I began to visit his cubicle and listened to him talk
with his circle of friends when I was off duty.
As the weeks passed, the small talk began to include patients,
military regulations and drugs. This was the first time I had heard the
word "marijuana" mentioned in a positive way. The government said it
was a dangerous narcotic but I had never seen it, talked about it or had
any interest in it. I soon discovered that Diego knew all about it and had
even smoked it himself (!)
I let this shocking revelation simmer for a few days before I resumed
my friendly visits. At one point when a certain amount of trust had
developed between us Diego suggested I should join him and his friends
for a little smoke-in. I declined, but I felt tempted to take him up on his
offer - perhaps sometime in the future - maybe. In the meantime, I
became more curious about the gap between the government's position
and Diego's. I began to buy books and read articles about marijuana to
see how dangerous it really was.
I could not help it - I am a curious George.
Celia
Monday morning August 3, 1970 began as another hot, humid day at
the hospital with temperatures forecasted in the nineties. I sat in my airconditioned office and listened to the news reports of a tropical
disturbance named Celia that had entered the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf
provides warm moisture that turns swirling air masses into tropical
storms and tropical storms into hurricanes.
Captain Walker, the commanding officer of the hospital, closed the
clinics and ordered a few windows boarded up - but hurricanes had come
and gone in the past with no serious consequences. According to the
weather report, the winds on the inner wall gusted to ninety and carried a
few inches of rain. This sounded to me like a chance see a big windstorm
and I looked forward to having the day off to watch it. Doctor Clark
stopped in and gave me a few words of instruction before he left. He had
decided to stay at home with his family instead of remaining in the clinic
with nothing to do.
Around eleven o'clock, the wind picked up and a fine mist fell from
the sky. I took a walk around the hospital and visited a few friends before
I returned to the clinic. During that short period, the wind and increased
dramatically and I decided to hurry to the chow hall to each lunch.
I ate quickly and went back outside. By this time, the wind blew so
hard that three of us had to struggle to hold the door open and hang onto
our hats as we dashed across the street. When I reached the clinic, the
56
rain began to increase in volume. I checked the weather report and heard
that the storm had upgraded to a category three at one hundred miles per
hour. It was still an inconsequential storm compared to what it could
have been and I remained unconcerned. I leaned back in my chair and
continued to read "The Greening of America".
An hour later, the rain began to strike the windows with increased
velocity. I put down my book and walked into the waiting room. A
puddle of water had formed where the rain forced its way beneath the
door. I walked through the swinging doors onto the ward and saw the
same puddles at each entrance. Through the windows at the north end, I
saw the palm trees thrash wildly in the wind. A seabird that looked like a
pelican cartwheeled across the grass. For the first time I began to feel
uneasy about this storm. I walked over to the intensive care unit to help
the nurses move patients to a safer area - away from the windows.
Water began to puddle on the floor beneath the windows and I
realized the rain had forced its way around the window frames. When I
returned to the clinic, I checked conditions outside the building. Debris
flew through the air and a stop sign on the corner made a weird humming
noise as it vibrating back and forth in the wind. I decided to venture
outside before it got any worse and made a quick dash down the
sidewalk. Two other thrill-seeking corpsmen, hung onto the wooden
beams that supported the sidewalk canopies.
The wind gusts began to suck the air out of my lungs and bits of
debris began to sting me when I decided to go back inside. I barely made
headway against the wind, which now began to howl. I made it back
inside and waited another half-hour as the wind continued to increase in
strength. Suddenly I heard a low vibration in the walls of the building - a
moaning sound that sent jolts of fear through my body. Then, gradually,
the sound died down and the building ceased to vibrate.
A half-hour later, the rain and wind stopped and the sun came out.
This struck me as odd when I went outside along with a few others to
examine the mess outside the buildings. We stayed outside for fifteen
minutes until the sun slipped behind the clouds and the wind suddenly
returned - this time from the opposite direction. I stood by the window
and watched as the Red Cross building across the street stood up to
incredible gusts of wind. Suddenly, the roof rose up and traveled a short
distance before it crashed to the ground.
Cars in the parking lot began to slip across the pavement as all the
stop signs vibrated together with an eerie humming sound. Once again I
heard the building begin to moan and vibrate as the pressure in my ears
increased. This time I felt something serious was going to happen. A
57
loud boom wiped out my remaining courage and I headed for the linen
closet.
Inside the dark closet, I said a Hail Mary and begged God for mercy.
In that moment of terror I believed the building was about to collapse
and many people were going to die. At that same moment of panic when
I felt that this was it, the noise began to diminish. Within two hours, the
wind died down and the rain tapered off to showers. By six p.m., the sun
came out and I was back in the chow hall with the rest of the staff, eating
cold cereal and milk and talking about the storm.
The news report that evening said the wind averaged one hundred
thirty miles per hour but the gusts that wrecked downtown Corpus
Christi tore the wind meter off the airport roof at one hundred eighty
miles per hour!
The next day I was scheduled to go on leave, and they let me go!
Two weeks later, when I returned, the cleanup had ended and I received
a citation for bravery on my service record. All I did before I left was
mop up the water on the floor of the roofless Red Cross building.
In the spring of 1971, my life had reached its highest point. I was
twenty-three years old and I had recently passed the HM2 test for
second-class corpsman, which bumped me to E-5. It was easy to make
rank thanks to the large number of corpsman injured or killed in
Vietnam. My four-year contract would not allow me to move higher in
the program without reenlisting for another four years which I had
already decided not to do. If I chose, I could even move off the base.
One Saturday afternoon I stood security watch in the canteen – a job
that consisted of eating snack food and complaining about the broken airconditioner. I decided to do something about it by preparing a petition
and asking everyone in the canteen to sign it. At the time, I did not know
that a petition had no place in the military. It is not a democracy.
Instead of making a polite inquiry, I sent the petition to the
Maintenance Department and managed to irritate the technicians who
already had parts on order but had not received them. A few weeks later,
the part came in and the air-conditioner began to work once again.
A month later, the air-conditioning in the barracks decided to quit
working. At first, I did not notice the difference but as a heat wave rolled
in from West Texas; the barracks became uncomfortably warm and
humid. I checked with the Maintenance Department and heard the same
story, "We know about the problem and the parts are on order."
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This time I decided to ask two of my friends, Rusty and Harley to
help me find out what was wrong with the swamp cooler that was
supposed to deliver the cold air.
First, we located the motor switch but the moment we turned it on,
the fan blade began to vibrate like crazy. It looked like the motor shaft
had a broken bearing. I stared at the cracked piece and tried to think of a
way to fix it. The longer I focused on the piece the more I realized we
could wrap any material that was hard, yet flexible around the shaft to
perform the same function as the bearing.
I went to the x-ray department and found a discarded lead apron
from which I cut a 3x4 inch strip. When I returned to the unit, Rusty and
Harley were already waiting with axle grease and three stainless steel
hose clamps they found at the automotive repair shop. The two them
lifted the fan shaft and removed the cracked bearing while I cleaned the
surface of the shaft and applied the grease. The last step was to wrap the
lead strip around the shaft and cut off the excess. Rusty installed the
clamps to hold the makeshift bearing in place and we were done.
Harley rotated the shaft by hand to see if it would turn freely before
we turned it on. When I threw the switch, the air-conditioning unit
started up and ran as smooth as glass. We were ecstatic and went back
inside to receive praise from the other guys. The truth is nobody even
noticed our achievement. Within one hour the temperature inside
dropped from ninety to seventy degrees.
The success of this project boosted my self-confidence into the
stratosphere. I had taken the initiative and repaired a machine I knew
nothing about with simple materials; a task the boys in maintenance had
failed to do. I had used my imagination and discovered a talent I did not
know I possessed.
Taking Risks
In late summer of 1971, the new barracks the Navy had built for us
behind the movie theater opened for occupation. This was actually bad
news for me since I had grown fond of the old barracks and the close ties
I enjoyed with the other corpsmen.
The new barracks contained individual rooms that housed two to
four individuals depending on rank. The rooms included doors with
locks, intercoms, air conditioners and spacious footlockers. The TV room
was downstairs and the poolroom was upstairs. Everyone took turns
standing security watch in the office and making announcements over the
intercom system.
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Now that I had a semi-private room, I became isolated from my old
friends. My new roommate, Fat Arnie, who had a private life off base,
rarely occupied his side of the room. As the weeks passed, I played pool,
watched TV and drove around in my car until I became bored. I had lost
my connection to Diego after he and his new girlfriend moved into an
apartment together. I still saw him occasionally in the chow hall or
passed him on the ramps during working hours.
His offer to get me "stoned" still remained a possibility that I had
continued to ponder. When he made fun of the authority figures on the
base I laughed along with the rest and wondered if marijuana changed
one's point of view. My curiosity eventually overcame my fear and I
hinted that I might like to try it "once."
At 5 p.m. on a Friday afternoon, Diego and five of his friends
gathered in a room in the barracks. Somebody stuffed a towel against the
door bottom while another person pulled out a $10 baggie half-full of
dried, green leaves, stems and seeds. He showed me the "green vegetable
matter" in the bag and I experienced a shock.
"That's it?"
Until that moment I had never questioned the government's warnings
against "narcotics" which to me meant needles and white powder;
however, they had also called marijuana a "narcotic" and compared it
with heroin. The fact that it was a dried plant no different from tobacco
ended my doubts. At that moment, I changed my mind and decided I was
no longer afraid to try it. The owner pinched a small amount into a
rolling paper and expertly curled it into a homemade cigarette. He lit the
end, drew in a lungful and held it for ten or fifteen seconds before he
exhaled. The "joint" made the rounds of our little group until it came my
turn.
I was no longer afraid but since I did not smoke cigarettes, I did not
want to foul my lungs. Still, I had to find out what the big fuss was
about. For twenty minutes, we passed joints until everyone had enough –
except for me. For some unknown reason the smoke had no effect on my
body. As we filed out of the room, I felt disappointed and puzzled that
the government considered this harmless activity, a crime.
A week later, I told Diego I wanted to try once more to experience
the effect of marijuana. At first, he appeared reluctant but when I
insisted, he finally agreed.
We gathered in the same room a week later. We repeated the same
routine but this time it was different. After a few puffs, something inside
me changed and I burst into hysterical laughter. My laughter triggered a
chain reaction among the other smokers and suddenly, everything
60
became hilariously funny. The music that was playing became
exquisitely beautiful, and my brain filled with extraordinary ideas and
imaginings that blended perfectly with the musical vibrations. Time
vanished, and the words spoken by the other corpsmen in the room took
on double and triple meanings. At one point, the structure of the room
itself became fluid.
Diego tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to his watch. It took
me awhile to understand that he wanted us to leave for the chow hall. I
followed him out of the room and down the hall – a corridor that
stretched ten feet down and a great distance ahead. Diego and Larry who
came with us appeared in perfect control of themselves, whereas I had
difficulty adjusting to the alteration of space and time.
On the way to the chow hall, Diego said that experienced users
adapted to the changes and learned to control them. He said that
marijuana also stimulates appetite and increases the pleasure of eating.
He was right on both counts. By the time we finished an
extraordinarily delicious meal and left the chow hall, I was almost back
to normal. He dropped me off at the barracks and I went upstairs to play
pool for an hour before I retired for the night. As I lay awake savoring
the mellow after-effects I wondered why the Government was so
determined stamp out marijuana. My experience with alcohol had been
much worse.
The next morning I noticed there was no hangover from smoking the
leaves of the plant; nevertheless, I had broken the law and I felt guilty
and afraid of the consequences. It was the same feeling I had when I had
disobeyed Nina and gotten away with it.
On Monday, I returned to work a changed person. I brought my tape
recorder into the operating room for the first time and played soft music
while Dr. Clark performed vasectomies. No one seemed to mind when I
purchased a reel-to-reel deck and played rock music in the main
operating suite. I grew a beard and mustache, wore love beads and let my
hair grow longer. I was beginning to pursue a life of pleasure.
One day, "Woody", who ran the Ear Clinic decided to take me under
his wing and upgrade my appearance to increase my chances of finding a
girlfriend. We went to a men's clothing store and picked out a white shirt
with vertical brown stripes, fancy bellbottoms, and new shoes. I got a
professional haircut and Woody took a picture of me all spiffed up. On
Friday night, we went to a popular club where we danced and spent time
at the table drinking and talking with girls. This went on for weeks but in
61
spite of all this preparation, nothing came of it. Somehow, I was not
ready.
Months later, I did find a girlfriend away from the nightclub scene. I
even smuggled her into my room in the barracks. We were under the
covers when Woody, who had become my new roommate, unlocked the
door and stared in shocked disbelief at the two of us in my bunk. He
quickly apologized, turned around and left the room. The girl (Wendy)
and I both hurried up and left.
The topic of conversation the next morning at the chow hall was my
daring escapade, which Richard never tired of describing to his circle of
friends. Later he shared with me intimate details of his own encounter
with a girl he met at the nightclub. It was a big moment for him.
62
Tasting Forbidden Fruit
As 1971 ended, I had acquired everything I needed to be happy - a
girlfriend, a car, a steady income, a great boss plus free room and board
with health care. In spite of all these benefits, I felt unsatisfied with my
life and I did not know why. After I experienced the pleasurable effect of
smoking the cannabis plant, I believed I had found happiness.
I decided to make this plant a part of my life and made inquiries as to
where I could purchase more of the weed. The Naval Air Station was not
far from the border, which was the crossing point for the product I was
smoking. As the weeks and months passed, I became comfortable with
this new and simple pleasure and I decided to insure myself a steady
supply. For that to happen I needed to acquire a larger quantity – half of
which I would keep for my own personal use and the other half I would
sell to my friends. This way I could enjoy my new habit at no cost.
I found out that a pound of dried marijuana/cannabis/hemp from
Mexico costs eighty dollars. I purchased a bag and broke it down into
$10 baggies that weighed one ounce. In the back of my mind, I knew that
selling marijuana increased my criminal liability in the eyes of
prohibitionist lawmakers but I could not see anything wrong with it. I
was an adult over 21 capable of making my own decisions about my
body. In fact, I gave up alcohol after I discovered cannabis because it
was less toxic to my system. What is wrong with that?
I was perfectly willing to buy marijuana from licensed outlets and
pay sales tax - the same as alcohol and tobacco – but the government
refused to step up to the plate and take control of it. So I bought it from
unlicensed dealers, (my friends), and they, in turn, bought it from me.
As the months passed, nothing happened to convince me that what I
was doing was wrong - until the day when a maintenance worker
removed the panel from the room air conditioner and discovered my
homemade water pipe. I had made the water pipe from an intravenous
water bottle and rubber tubing to reduce the impact of the smoke on my
lungs. He took it to the Security department, which alerted them, for the
first time, to my illegal activity.
When I discovered it missing, I should have realized they would
begin an investigation. I could have quit or taken extra precautions but I
did neither because nothing happened in the days that followed.
On a rainy Tuesday morning in February 1972, I got a call from
Security to come over for an interview. The stranger who sat across from
me in civilian clothes was an agent from the Office of Naval
Investigation (ONI). He was very polite and friendly.
63
"It has come to my attention from several sources that you are
involved in the use of a controlled substance," he said. "Would you like
to tell me about it?" He leaned forward as if we were about to share a
secret.
I knew he wanted me to confess my crime and ask for help with my
addiction.
"There is nothing to talk about," I said, feeling a little nervous.
"Do you mean to say the information we've received isn't true?"
I hesitated. I did not want to lie to this man but I did not want to
admit that I had broken the law.
"I don't know where you got that information," I replied. "Could you
explain it to me?"
"That's confidential," he said.
I nodded and decided to say nothing.
He stared at me through his glasses and waited.
Finally, he leaned back in his chair and said, "All right son, I am
done talking with you. If you change your mind and want to talk here is
my card."
I accepted his card and stood as we shook hands. I knew this man
was my enemy but I felt no hostility toward him; in fact, I liked him. I
walked back to my clinic and felt a mixture of anxiety and relief. What I
should have paid attention to was a loud voice inside my head that said,
stop smoking right now and get rid of the evidence! This was critical
since my discharge was only a few short months away.
Meanwhile, the usual routine at the clinic continued until one
morning Dr. Clark received a surprise. One of his recurrent tumor
patients, Margie Waits that was scheduled for a bladder removal showed
no sign of tumors the morning of her surgery. After he had spent years
performing resections and biopsies he stared at the x-ray in disbelief.
There was nothing for us to do but pack up and return to the clinic.
Two weekends later, Jon Thompson and I drove through the Texas
Hill country northwest of Corpus and discovered an abandoned stretch of
road that had been replaced by the new highway. We follow it for miles
across the flat Texas countryside until there were no signs of civilization.
I parked the Datsun and we found a spot in the middle of the road to sit
down and talk. We passed a joint back and forth and talked for hours
about the Vietnam War and anything else that came to mind.
The general mood of the country at that time was anti-war and a
softening attitude toward cannabis. Richard Nixon had appointed a blue
ribbon panel of experts (The Schafer Commission) to study the
marijuana issue and thus provide him with the proof he needed for his
planned crackdown on cannabis. In fact, Nixon pressured the chairperson
64
Ray Schaefer, the governor of Pennsylvania, to deliver a denunciation of
cannabis - or face hostility from the White House. When the Schafer
Commission finally released its findings, they recommended legal
regulation instead of continued Prohibition.
Nixon was furious. He denounced the Schaffer Report and declared
war against twenty million pot smokers. Nixon himself enjoyed
addicting, recreational drugs with no medical value when he lit up a
good cigar and shared a dry martini with his friends - but these were for
relaxation – not to get "high".
As the number of federal drug warriors and local police received
taxpayer dollars to carry out Nixon's Drug War, I made plans to visit Big
Bend National Park in West Texas. A ward corpsman, Juan Ortega, and I
packed our equipment into my little green Datsun and set out on a bold
new adventure. Along the way, we stopped at a campground for a
sleepover.
By midnight most of the campers had turned in and I was about to
fall asleep when I heard a faint roar in the distance. The sound increased
in volume until it came to a stop outside the gate. It was impossible to
sleep so Juan and I got up to investigate. We discovered that a
motorcycle gang had decided spend the night at our campground.
The manager came to the gate to confront the leader and tell him the
campground was closed for the night and they must leave. He appeared
to me somewhat intoxicated and acted as if he were shooing away some
annoying kids. The leader of the group did not respond well to this
treatment and ended the confrontation with a few punches to the
caretakers face. He went down quickly and began screaming for help,
which nobody on our side was prepared to offer.
The bikers realized they had nothing to gain through more violence
and they moved on. Someone called an ambulance and the poor fellow
took a ride to the hospital while the rest of us went back to sleep.
The following day we arrived at the park and pitched our tent in the
campground near Boquias Canyon. The canyon was a popular tourist
attraction for its spectacular scenery and wildwater rafting. Juan and I
smoked some grass to enhance the experience but I was disappointed
when it had the opposite effect. The natural energy of the place was so
high that the THC acted as a depressant and left me immobile in the tent
instead of having fun.
On the way back to the base, the engine on my car began to overheat
so I stopped by the side of the road and turned off the ignition. My intent
was to add more coolant to the radiator. When I unscrewed the
pressurized cap, the hot coolant sprayed all over me and soaked the
engine. As I stumbled, half blind, to the drivers side Juan saw what had
65
happened and burst into hysterical laughter. I tried to find something to
wipe my eyes and explain to him it was not funny, but it only made him
laugh harder.
Fifteen minutes later, we stopped at a gas station where I changed
my shirt and rinsed off the sticky green liquid from my face and hair. On
the way back to the base I reminded myself to always leave a hot engine
running when removing a radiator cap.
By April of 1972, I had a month to go on my service contract. On the
surface, everything looked good. I had escaped the Vietnam War and my
replacement, HM3 Rick Gardner had arrived to take over some of my
duties. I had decided to move off the base after the incident with the
water pipe and spend my weekends exploring more of Texas. My trips
took me north to Houston and Austin, west to San Antonio and south to
Brownsville. For a while, I was happy to drive to new places and to see
new sites.
One night in late April, I stopped at a Mexican restaurant in Gregory
and ordered some enchiladas. On the way home, I experienced stomach
cramps, and by the time I reached Corpus Christi, I felt nauseous with a
severe headache.
I decided to bypass my apartment and drive straight to the
Emergency Room. After I arrived, I began to hurl the enchiladas and
afterwards I had to sit down and remain bent over for hours. Around 3
a.m. I began to feel better and went home. The doctor on duty told me I
had bacterial food poisoning and called the restaurant manager to warn
him to get rid of the enchiladas. Apparently, they had frozen and
reheated the enchiladas more than once before they served them to me.
That was the last time I ate in a Mexican restaurant for a few years.
A week after the food poisoning incident, I came to the E.R. to
collect a patient's records when Corpswave Lucy Johnson, (female
hospital corps) stopped me in the hall. She led me to a side room where
four medivac stretchers were stacked one on top of the other against the
wall. At first, I thought the bodies inside the stretchers were medical
training dummies until I realized they were dead pilots! A training crew
had crashed at the Naval Air Station hours earlier, killing all four of
them. I stood and stared at their faces for a while until I got used to the
feeling of death.
Paradise Lost
It was another Monday afternoon in the Urology Clinic. I had
adopted my usual position with my feet up on the desk reading Herman
66
Hesse's "Magister Ludi" when in walked a patient who said he was
looking for Nick Jordan.
"That's me," I said. "What can I do for you?"
"I'm looking for some weed," he said. "The corpsmen on my ward
told me I could get some from you. I've got the money right here." He
reached into his pocket and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill.
I stared at him in surprise.
"The corpsmen on your ward told you to come to me to buy
marijuana?"
"That's right. Jackson and Lebow on the orthopedics ward."
"I thought it over. If Jackson and Lebow trusted this person, then
maybe I should trust him also. It never occurred to me that this man was
telling me a lie.
"I'd like to help you man but I'm all out right now."
"What if I come back on Friday? he replied. "I'll be on the
orthopedics ward until next Monday when the doctor discharges me."
I thought it over. Part of me felt a little nervous doing business
outside my circle of trusted friends but I wanted to make the man happy
and I could always use the extra cash.
"Well… I don't know. We'll see."
"Gee, thanks man. I'll be back on Friday afternoon." He shook my
hand and left the clinic.
On Friday afternoon, my new acquaintance reappeared and we
conducted the transaction. He walked away with a big smile on his face
and I returned to my book. I was so relaxed about cannabis by that time I
never once thought to check out his story with the ward corpsmen.
The following Monday I sat in the chow hall eating breakfast and
listening to a conversation between Billy Watts and Ed Harper. Billy
worked with Lieutenant Jimmy Quinn in the Security Department and
overheard a telephone conversation about a sting operation Jimmy had
set up. Billy said that his boss had just nailed a member of the hospital
staff for selling marijuana. At the sound of these words, a huge jolt
passed through me. My appetite suddenly vanished and I sat motionless
as my future flashed before my eyes. I had given the ONI all the
evidence they needed to bust me. I returned to the clinic and waited for
the hammer to fall.
At 10:30, the call came in from the Security Department to report to
the Captain's Office. As I stood in shock, someone read me my rights and
charged me with possession and sale of a controlled substance - a federal
crime. The hospital assigned a Navy lawyer to my case and released me
into the custody of my boss.
67
The Correctional Center
The three weeks I had to wait for my court-martial were the worst
period of my life. I had to work the night shift at the Administration
Building after Rick took over my job at the clinic. The new schedule
forced me to sleep during the day and stay up all night while I worried
about going to jail. The pressure was wrecking my health.
On the same day that I completed my four-year contract, I appeared
in the courtroom and watched my trial play out like a bad dream. My
boss, Commander Clark (whose recreational drug was beer) testified that
he was satisfied with my job performance in the clinic. My defense
lawyer and the prosecutor both questioned me on the stand while I shook
like a bowl of jello. I was on the verge of a nervous collapse.
The trial lasted one hour in front of a judge who appeared
unconcerned with my crime. He allowed me to keep my honorable
discharge but busted me back to E-3 with sixty days hard labor at the
Correctional Center. I know this is a joke to many people who have spent
years in prison for an ounce of pot but to me this was the worst
nightmare I could imagine.
Someone handcuffed me and led me away to be processed. I
overheard someone else say my trial aroused interest because I was the
highest-ranking enlisted man on the base arrested for drugs. My lawyer,
Lt. Johnson told me the court-martial cost the Navy $10,000, which
struck me as a waste of taxpayer money. I had not harmed anyone and
the people who prosecuted me were recreational users of alcohol and
tobacco - two dangerous, addicting drugs that killed a half million people
every year. It did not make any sense.
They transported me in a security van to the Correctional Center to
join the other criminals. As we passed through the iron gates, I looked up
and saw a sign over the entrance that read, Enter to Learn, Depart to
Serve. The guards escorted me to a holding cell, and motioned to me to
step inside. When the iron door closed and locked the full impact of my
situation finally hit me.
Despair
The wake-up call inside the Correctional Center came at five in the
morning. I got up with the others and marched around the courtyard for
an hour before we boarded a truck that took us to the chow hall for
breakfast. After breakfast, they moved me from my cell into the main
block with the other drug offenders. As I stood at attention, the guards
searched our beds and lockers for contraband. When they finished, we
68
lined up to begin the day's work of unloading trucks and mowing lawns.
At noontime, they trucked us back to the chow hall for lunch. After lunch
we went back out into the hot sun for yard work and cleanup details.
At three p.m., the hottest part of the day, we returned to the
courtyard to perform calisthenics. This was the hardest part of the
punishment to endure and after a half hour of violent exercise, beneath
the hot Texas sun, men began to cry out in pain and several collapsed on
the concrete surface of the courtyard. The loudspeaker continued to blare
at us to keep up the count while our bodies screamed in protest. The
calisthenics finally ended and we marched off to the showers. At five
p.m., we returned to the chow hall for dinner.
The evening brought cooler temperatures and letter writing, reading,
and courtyard exercise for which none of us had any energy. The rules
forbad anyone to sit or lie on our bunk until bedtime. At 10 p.m., it was
lights out.
The ninety-degree temperatures inside the prison and the stress of
confinement were hard to endure. We were subject to random searches of
lockers and periodic blasts from the loudspeakers. The only relief came
at night in dreams.
One inmate nearly drove our work group crazy with his endless
yammering. If he had something intelligent or funny to say, it would
have lightened the load but it was useless to tell him to stop talking and
allow the rest of us to suffer in peace. Maybe that is why they locked him
up.
Despite the fact that my cellmates were all criminals, I quickly made
friends with some of them. I soon discovered that most of them were
dopers just like me.
As the days passed, my mood grew more desperate and I began to
look for brief moments of relief. A cool breeze from an air conditioner, a
kind word from a guard, or a funny remark from a fellow inmate. These
distractions allowed me to escape from an argument inside my head that
I could not resolve. One side of the argument said I was free to pursue
my own form of happiness as long as I did not harm others. The other
side said I must obey federal and state law. Both sides refused to give in
which left me mentally exhausted as I labored beneath the hot Texas sun.
Ten days passed before prison officials moved me to the petty officer
section in "A" block. The new environment provided air conditioning
and fewer restrictions. My lawyer, Lt. Morgan visited me and
encouraged me to write letters to people I knew and ask them to contact
the Commanding Officer of the hospital on my behalf. He also
recommended I write to Captain Creighton myself and ask for a pardon. I
followed his suggestions but believed nothing would come of it. The
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state of Texas routinely locked up offenders like me for a decade or
longer, and I got sixty days!
At the end of my second week, they allowed me to leave the
compound and walk to the movie theater with my group. Inside the
theater, I waited until the movie began before I gave in to the urge to
leave and visit friends in the barracks across the street. After two weeks
of misery, I needed some relief. I found several friends and shared my
experience behind bars until the opportunity arose to smoke a joint. This
was extremely risky behavior but I went ahead anyway and took a few
hits off the joint. Within a few moments, I lost my sense of time so that
when I decided to return to the movie theater, the building was deserted!
I knew I had really done it this time. I was in serious trouble if I did
not make it back to the gate with the other prisoners. As I ran all the way
back, I concocted a story that I had become ill and gone across the street
to my old barracks where I gotten sick. When I returned to the theatre,
the movie was over.
It was a ridiculous piece of nonsense but I could not think of
anything that sounded reasonable. When I arrived at the gate, the security
truck was ready to leave the compound in search of the escaped prisoner.
I spent the weekend in a holding cell after the duty officer, Lt. Jolly,
listened to my tearful explanation, and could not figure out what to do
with me. I actually did look and feel sick after running all the way back
in that heat.
On Monday, the a.m. crew moved me back to the petty officers
section where I waited for the interrogation and punishment that would
surely follow, but nothing happened. A week later, I stood by my bunk to
wait for the morning work assignment when somebody called out my
name.
"Jordan!"
"Here sir!"
Corrections petty officer approached me, placed his hand on my
shoulder and said, "Follow me and bring your gear with you."
I stuffed my belongings into my sea bag and followed him through
the iron gate into the lobby. Inside the lobby, a warrant officer walked up
to me and said, "You are free to go, Jordan. Your commanding officer
has pardoned you."
As soon as I heard these words, I was stunned.
I walked past the other guys lined up for work details and received
congratulations on my good fortune. In return, I felt sorry for them.
The duty petty officer drove me from the Correctional Center, to the
Transit Quarters. Here, prisoners received temporary supervision until
they returned to active duty status. My case, however, was different. It
70
suddenly dawned on me that I did not have to stay here because I was not
returning to active duty!
I made a phone call to Rick at the Urology Clinic, and within thirty
minutes, he appeared with my car. He handed me the keys and I drove
off the base as a civilian. I still had to wait around for my discharge
papers but I was done with the Navy. I missed my friends, however, and
I made a final visit to the emergency room to say goodbye. On my way
down the hall, I came face to face with Captain Williams, the second in
command of the hospital. The timing of our meeting could not have been
worse. Williams, a heavy boozer, took a dim view of a convicted pothead
like me.
"Hold it right there, Jordan."
As I came to a halt and wondered what he wanted with me, he
produced a pocketknife and began to cut off my second-class stripes. The
blade was dull and he had to struggle to cut the threads. It was a
humiliating moment in a public place and I could feel his anger as the
dull blade hacked its way through the threads. From his point of view, I
had betrayed the hospital, broken the law, endangered patients, burdened
the Navy with a court-martial, and then left without serving my full
sentence. Now I was walking around wearing my full rank as if nothing
had happened.
"I want you to know Jordan; I think you are a disgrace. Now get out
of my sight."
"Yes sir."
As I walked away, I was certain he had nothing to do with my early
release.
Homeward Bound
By June 20, 1972, I had received my discharge papers and loaded
my belongings into my car. I was ready to begin the long drive home.
For three days, I enjoyed the scenic drive along the gulf coast and
up the eastern seaboard. The long drive gave me the time I needed to sort
out what had happened. I decided that my big mistake was my belief that
the government would re-legalize marijuana - regulate it, card it and tax
it like alcohol and tobacco. On this issue, I had misjudged the Nixon
prohibitionists who believed that Government bureaucrats and police
should decide what adults citizens should put into their own bodies, and
have the right to punish them if they disobeyed. I realized that if I
planned to continue smoking green vegetable matter I would have to
learn secrecy. One thing was certain; I did not want to go to jail ever
again.
71
The ride across Florida and up through the southern states brought
back memories of my trip with Roger seven years earlier. I revisited the
Everglades and the southern pine forests, breathed the fragrance of pecan
trees and watched the two hundred miles of Stuckey's billboards flash
past me. The high point came when I passed through the Great Smoky
Mountains near Knoxville, Tennessee, at dusk. The contrast between the
flaming sunset and the misty pine forest below created a sight of
unspeakable beauty. I wanted that moment to remain with me, forever.
My altered state did not last long. The smell of New Jersey's
industrial smokestacks and the endless tollbooths of Connecticut brought
back a familiar past I had forgotten for four years.
The return of the native son was not quite the happy occasion I
wanted it to be. Owen was happy to see me but Nina was her usual
anxious self, trying to control everything. She dutifully allowed me to
move back into my tiny bedroom at the west end of the house.
My arrest on drug charges had given Nina more cause for worry. She
extracted an agreement from me that I would not bring any marijuana
into the house. I also agreed to pay rent and applied for a job at
Heywood-Wakefield furniture factory. It was easy to land a job there
since Owen had worked in the cost department for more than thirty
years.
I accepted a job in the steaming and bending room managed by
Richard Grey, an amiable alcoholic who entertained me with comical
tales of his sexual exploits with his girlfriend, Rhonda. The job of
steaming and bending the wood was a no-brainer but the top floor of the
factory was hot and humid during the summer. For a while, I enjoyed the
career change.
It was comfortable living at home but as the months passed, Nina
and I began to have disagreements. The differences between us had never
been greater now that I had lived on my own for five years and no longer
believed much of anything she had told me as a child. My attempts to
establish a new relationship with her ended in failure. She could not
relate to me as an adult and I could not play the obedient son. Our
clumsy attempts at communication consisted of constant interruptions
from both sides to correct errors in thinking. In the end, we both retreated
to opposite ends of the house with as little contact as possible.
Nina's refusal to discuss subjects that I found fascinating – religion,
philosophy and human consciousness left me no choice but to seek
friendship elsewhere. Before long, I ran across an old acquaintance in the
neighborhood – Charlie Brook, who introduced me to his latest project –
72
a garage full of drying hemp plants. We began to spend time together,
getting stoned.
Before long, I had broken my agreement with Nina and smoked in
the bathroom directly beneath the exhaust fan. Some of the smoke must
have lingered because she began to complain that she could smell it in
the house. Neither Owen nor I ever smelled anything but Nina had the
nose of a bloodhound that could detect a single cannabinoid molecule.
As the weeks passed by, we began a cat and mouse game, in which she
would randomly announce that she smelled, "that damned marijuana
again."
The situation became impossible to deal with because Nina would
complain after I had not smoked for a week. Her false accusation would
trigger another argument, which ended in a stalemate.
At one point, I learned that she had joined a group of parents who
discussed their children's drug use and tried to find ways to combat it. I
worried she might decide to turn me in to the police "for my own good."
My single attempt to discuss with her the relative dangers of each
drug beginning with alcohol, tobacco and pharmaceutical drugs ended in
a stony wall of silence. Nina had her doctor prescribed "legal" supply of
pills to fight depression, my father had his daily dose of caffeine and
cigarettes, and I had my little jar of homegrown, hemp leaves.
This standoff could have gone on indefinitely but Nina suddenly
announced she planned to attend flower-arranging school. She refused to
say where - only when. Owen objected, as usual, and wanted to know
where she got the money to pay her room, board and school tuition. She
refused to answer which left us to wonder if she had a secret job
somewhere and had stashed the money away. I could not believe she had
actually found employment somewhere. She only revealed to us that she
would be gone for five weeks.
One day, I came home to discover that she had left - and I became
ecstatically happy.
For the next five weeks, the house became an abode of peace and
tranquility. My father and I went to the movies together, ate meals
together, and went for Sunday afternoon rides through the Vermont
countryside together. I had never felt such freedom and happiness. The
weeks passed by like a beautiful dream.
All too soon, the dream ended. Nina reappeared, and the happiness
we enjoyed quickly evaporated. The sudden switch from happiness to
depression was too dramatic not to notice a connection. For the first time
I began to suspect that Nina was the cause of my depression.
While she was gone, Owen and I had taken over her duties of
making meals and cleaning the house, which probably irked her when
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she returned and discovered how we had managed just fine without her. I
asked her how her trip had gone but she refused to discuss it with me.
Within a short time, she regained control of the house and Owen and
I retreated once again to our rooms.
The time I spent alone in my room after work each day gave me an
opportunity to dig deeper into the world of ideas. I began to purchase
books by Alan Watts, Carlos Castaneda, Da Freejohn, Aleister Crowley,
Hermann Hesse, D.T. Suzuki and Ram Dass. To my delight, I felt an
instant attraction to the ancient wisdom of Buddhism.
Siddhartha Gautama (the founder) discovered that human beings
suffer because we attach ourselves to things that do not last – and
ultimately, nothing lasts. The way to avoid suffering was to understand
this principle and let go of the world rather than cling to it.
Da Freejohn taught the same principle but warned that too much
letting go can lead to loneliness and isolation - which is again, a form of
suffering. From these two observations, I concluded that neither clinging
nor avoiding was the best strategy.
While I thought about this mystery and what it meant I remembered
that cannabis added a dreamlike quality to the world, which led me to
wonder if the world was in fact a dream, which had become a little
too real. It certainly helped explain why we suffer.
From Ram Dass' classic, "Be Here Now" I learned about diet, yoga,
breathing exercise, and meditation. I learned from Carlos Castaneda the
four enemies of happiness - fear, power, clarity, and death. From Alan
Watts and D.T. Suzuki I discovered Zen - the practice of pushing logic
and reason to its limit
I found Kali, the female symbol of creation and destruction in
Buddhism much easier to work with than the male Creator God
described in the Bible. The description of Kali fit perfectly with the
word, Nature. This discovery put me on solid ground since Nature was
something I could see and feel directly whereas the biblical God was
imaginary - merely a description in a book.
On Wednesday afternoon in June 1974, Nina and I managed a rare
conversation together. Until now, I had never dared challenge her
Catholic beliefs but on this particular day, I felt I was ready.
"Hey mom, is God actually a King? Does He really sit on a throne in
Heaven surrounded by angels?"
She looked at me with suspicion and wondered if I was trying to start
something.
"I'm serious."
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She was ironing a shirt for Owen and set the iron down for a
moment.
"Yes, Nick, God the Father is a King surrounded by Angels that
serve Him and act as emissaries between Him and Mankind."
"But if God is a male," I said, "and He created us, where does
Mother Nature fit in?"
She sighed and thought about it for a while.
"I don't know, dear. I just know that God is our Heavenly Father who
created the heavens and the earth, long ago, just as the Bible says. I know
what you're trying to do and I wish you'd stop it," she said in a weary
voice.
"I'm sorry, ma, but I just want to clear up something and I thought
maybe you could help me."
The idea that she could help me appealed to her and she reluctantly
agreed to continue the conversation.
"If Heaven is above you," I said, "why did Jesus say the Kingdom of
Heaven is within you?"
She listened to my words and I watched as she thought up her reply.
"That's right. Jesus did say the Kingdom of Heaven is within you. If
you like, I could let you borrow Bishop Sheen's book. He can explain it
much better than I can."
"No thanks, mom. I want to know what you think."
"Well, I'm sorry honey. I obey the Lord and study His words and so
should you, just as I taught you," she said, as she smiled at me. "I love
you dear."
I smiled back but I continued with my questions.
"One thing still puzzles me. If God is everywhere how can we
separate ourselves from God?"
"That's easy," she said. "We are separated from God by the sin of
Adam and Eve and by our own evil deeds. You know that sweetheart."
"So I'm separated from God because of Adam and Eve?"
"Yes."
"But how could that be my fault if I didn't exist back then."
"Because, as a descendent of Adam and Eve, you inherited the
consequences of their actions. I am sorry Nick, but I do not have all the
answers. Some things you must accept on faith"
"But you told me these stories were true and now I see they don't
make any sense."
"It is not my fault if you choose not to believe them," she said.
"I'm sorry, mom but I cannot believe in something which goes
against common sense. If God knows everything, then he knew perfectly
well that Adam and Eve would eventually disobey His instructions and
75
eat the apple; furthermore, if He truly loved Adam and Eve and wanted a
long term relationship, He wouldn't put the tree there in the first place."
As she listened to my words, she became agitated.
"You are getting me upset, Nick. Is that what you want?"
"What I want is for you to notice the contradictions in the Bible. It
says that God knows everything and at the same time, God does not
know everything. My brain doesn't work that way."
She stared at me with worry in her eyes. "I don't know what you are
talking about."
"I'm talking about this imaginary free will we are supposed to have.
If God knows everything then our lives are totally determined
beforehand, by an all-powerful God that knows exactly what will
happen."
As I waited for her reply she stared at me in shock, and then slowly
an expression of anger clouded her face.
"Those books you read have poisoned your mind. I don't want to
hear another word."
I understood her meaning and left the room.
76
Higher Education
My job as a wood bender in the steam room at Heywood's furniture
factory allowed me to experience life as a factory worker. The job did
not tax my brain and allowed me an opportunity to sort out the mess I
was dealing with inside my head. As months passed, however, the lack
of mental stimulation and the boring repetition of steaming and bending
wood led me to smoke more cannabis - which did not help.
At last, I decided to sign up for courses at Larkspur Community
College to break the monotony and perhaps secure a degree towards
something more challenging than factory work. My failure at Fitchburg
State College six years earlier and my drug bust left me with a damaged
ego, which I wanted to mend. If I could get my degree, I might recover
some of my self-esteem.
Classes began in September and I signed up for my new courses with
high hopes that my new psychology course might provide answers to my
tough questions.
The psychology teacher was a five foot two, happy, bubbly soul who
called herself Ms. Walker. She would have made a great entertainer at a
children's hospital but I was a serious student in search of wisdom and
enlightenment – not comedy. I quickly discovered that Psychology 101
offered a tremendous amount of information on human behavior but
failed to answer any of my questions. To her credit, my instructor
eventually introduced some Eastern philosophy and religion into the
course but there was no discussion afterwards. Most of the students in
the class were fresh out of high school and simply wrote down what she
said and memorized what the textbook said, as I had done at Fitchburg
State. Nobody had a background in philosophy and religion.
I made a few attempts to challenge her but Ms. Walker quickly
dismissed my arguments. With so much information to cover and so little
time, long discussions could not take place in the classroom agenda. I
could not accept new material without an argument and "Arguments do
not get resolved in psychology," she said. This made me wonder if there
was no such thing as ultimate truth. Maybe we can only choose a
position and defend it.
When we reached Sigmund Freud in the textbook, I found out I did
not like him at all. His world was dark, gloomy, and too symbolic.
Nothing was concrete.
At the end of the course, I took the finals and passed, knowing as
little when I finished as when I started.
77
The other course that raised my hopes was the course on drugs. If the
instructor, Ms. Walker had named the course, "The Government's War
on Drugs," I could have saved myself the trouble. The bookstores
provided dozens of volumes describing the dangers and benefits of every
known drug. Anyone who wanted to become an expert could purchase
the PDR (Physicians Desk Reference) and look up the information
without taking a course.
I mistakenly thought the textbook would provide a balanced
viewpoint on drugs; instead, it contained nothing but negative
information – mostly about the physiological effects on the body. The
text contained not a single word about why people chose to alter their
mood and level of consciousness. The course was simply a boring
description of federal drug policy.
I had hoped for input from doctors, drug dealers, drug users,
pharmaceutical representatives, police, politicians, clergy, and lawyers,
to make it interesting but that would have posed a threat to her job
security.
After I passed the finals, I quickly forgot everything I learned.
Between college semesters, I continued to study on my own –
reading books during the summer months and bicycling to Hunter Farm
in the evenings for ice cream. The two years I spent at LCC ended when
I received my associate's degree in liberal arts (!) My success as a junior
college graduate convinced me to apply for admission to the University
of Massachusetts.
On a Sunday afternoon in July, I opened the three closed doors to the
kitchen to get something to eat. At the same time Nina entered the
kitchen in a cheerless mood and began to complain that I had left the
doors open behind me. Then she announced she smelled marijuana again.
Since I had not smoked any for weeks we got into an argument and I
decided to end it by walking away.
I retreated to my room and stretched out on the bed to continue my
reading of "The Confessions of Aleister Crowley." Nina appeared at my
door, moments later, holding a pan of water within an angry expression
on her face. Suddenly, she threw the pan of water at me, which soaked
the book and splashed in my face. I was so surprised by her preemptive
strike that I could do nothing but stare at her in disbelief.
When the water hit my face, I felt something snap inside me. The
years of tension between us had finally reached the breaking point. I
leapt off the bed and chased her to the other end of the house to her
78
bedroom. I grabbed her around her waist and threw her as hard as I could
onto the bed. She bounced about a foot into the air.
By this time Owen arrived on the scene and wanted to know, "What
the hell is going on here!"
I stared at him in surprise because I had never before heard him use
the word "hell." as an expletive.
"She threw a pan of water at me for no reason." I said, as I tried to
catch my breath.
"I think we should call the police and have her committed. I've had
just about enough of this," he said angrily. His statement sounded so
inconsistent with his mild character, I had to laugh. He looked at me with
irritation.
"What is so funny?"
"Nothing. I just don't think we need to call the police. This is just a
family squabble."
"Well, it sure doesn't look like it to me. Someone is going to get
hurt."
I agreed with that.
Nina, in the meantime, had rolled off the bed and stood scowling at
both of us. She brushed by us and left the room without saying a word.
That evening, I thought about what had happened and I knew I could
not handle another violent outburst. I had lost control of myself three
times - twice on alcohol, which I quit drinking, and now I had lost
control in a fit of anger. Of one thing I was certain; I could not allow her
to push my button again. The next morning I told her I was leaving and
began packing my sea bag. I called my pot farming friend, Charlie, for a
ride out of town and he agreed to help me. On the trip through downtown
Gardner, I stopped at Heywood's to visit Owen and explain my
departure.
Afterwards, we headed for Otter River State Forest to the
campground at Beaman Pond. At the registration booth, I paid the $10.00
fee and chose a campsite. After Charlie left, I set up the camping
equipment I had purchased years before and which I now had an
opportunity to try out.
Over the years, conditions had changed at Beaman's. The pump that
had gushed cold, clear, well water was now a faucet that delivered warm
chlorinated town water. The public address and music system had fallen
into disrepair and the paved area in front of the stage had cracked and
supported a crop of weeds. The tents had given way to trailers.
Over the next few days, I searched for but could not find a single
orange-speckled salamander around the edge of the pond. As children,
79
we used to hunt for these little amphibians, play with them and let them
go. I hated to think that acid rain or toxic chemicals had killed them all.
I soon realized I was alone at the campground without much to do.
At night, I sat and read books by the fire. During the daytime, I hiked,
picked blueberries and blackberries, swam in the pond, or sunbathed on
the beach. I explored the two streams and searched for colored stones in
the streambeds. The summer heat and humidity supported a hungry
population of mosquitoes, that kept me busy smashing them with my
hand.
My boredom increased as the weeks went by. I had sold my green
Datsun the year before and now I used a bicycle to travel. My bank
account had dwindled after I left Heywood's and now I needed to look
for employment.
I soon found a job at a paper factory in nearby Baldwinville as a roll
wrapper on the night shift. The factory collected newspaper and rags and
stored them in bundles in the storage yard. The workers later dumped the
bundles into large tanks of chemicals where they dissolved into a lumpy
soup. The machines pressed the dissolved particles into thin sheets, dried
them, and fed the paper onto a roll. Part of my job was to clean out the
strainer, which filled with bailing wire and other junk, and transport the
finished rolls to the trucking area.
I was grateful for the job but the night shift was a tough adjustment
for my body clock. After the first week, I began to notice the crew I
worked with was under pressure to increase the speed of production. We
used the forklift to pick up the rolls and move them out to the storage
area but the faster we moved the forklifts the more we bumped into
things and put dents and holes in the rolls. The damaged rolls then went
back into the tank for reprocessing. I pointed out to the foreman that we
already moved at the optimum speed and that trying to go faster only
reduced productivity.
He shook his head and replied, "I don't say anything to the bosses. I
just carry out my orders."
After I had worked my shift for a few weeks, I visited the discharge
pipes and saw where the factory dumped the wastewater into the river. I
wondered what the bleach, peroxide, ink, acid, soap and paper pulp did
to the river. The river ran white and smelled in the summer, and dried
paper remnants lined the banks. The result was a dead river in exchange
for jobs.
Northampton State Hospital
80
With the approach of autumn, my life at Beaman Pond came to an
end. I was disappointment that I could not recapture the joy and
excitement I felt as a child camping with my family. As the weather
turned cold, I quit my dead end job at the paper factory and began to
search for a new life close to the University of Massachusetts. I had
already been accepted as a student and my first check arrived from the
government under the GI Bill.
I found an apartment in Northampton, Mass. and within a week, I
landed a job as an attendant at Northampton State Hospital. My new
workplace was an open ward of schizophrenics, manic depressants, and
drug casualties. When the police found derelicts wandering the streets, or
men having problems with alcohol and other dangerous drugs they
brought them to us. We fed these individuals, gave them a bed and a
locker and watched them walk around, smoke, watch TV, play cards, and
read books. Once a week they talked with a psychiatrist who evaluated
their progress and prescribed medication.
It was here on the ward that I met Bobby Martin and his brother
Mitch. Bobby and I clicked immediately but Mitch had a chip on his
shoulder that made it difficult for us to connect. Bobby and Mitch both
liked to experiment with non-addictive Schedule 1 substances and this
guaranteed we would spend time together.
As the months passed, I learned the routine and became familiar with
the ward staff and the residents. After work, I looked for entertainment in
downtown Northampton or at Smith College which had a charming
movie theater filled with college girls. Later I began to visit my two
friends at their home in North Hadley. They, in turn, visited me at my
apartment near the Northampton Fairgrounds, usually to get stoned.
As the months passed and the cold grey skies covered New England,
I began to feel the onset of the annual winter blues.
I had read Carlos Castaneda's books years earlier and become
fascinated with his stories of Don Juan, the Indian sorcerer. Castaneda's
skill as a writer exceeded his credibility as a truth teller in my opinion;
nevertheless, I felt that his masterpiece "Journey to Ixtlan" ran light years
ahead of the Bible in its wisdom and relevance to modern life. His
experience with peyote, magic mushrooms and datura (jimson weed)
fascinated me but I noticed that he dropped his emphasis on drugs after
his first book. Having read these fascinating accounts, I was eager to
explore these substances myself.
Bobby and I scored peyote buttons and magic mushrooms from
students in the Umass dorms and ingested them on our days off from
work. I was disappointed with the dried peyote after they made me want
to heave and offered no spiritual illumination. Later I tried chocolate
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mescaline, a synthetic derivative of the active ingredient that offered a
pleasant altered state without the urge to throw up. The mushrooms
produced a change in perception that was interesting, but not worth
repeating.
Jimson weed was another plant used by Castaneda but the effects I
read about were so frightening I decided not to try it.
The book reading and drug experiments helped relieve the midwinter melancholy but it was still mid-March 1976 and Northampton
remained buried in snow and ice. In my small dark apartment, I relied on
commercial-filled television programs, reading, and meditating to keep
up my spirits. I had tried college courses, entheogens, prayers, mantras,
fasting, spiritual literature, mental exercises, yoga, breathing exercises,
and diet changes in the hope that something called "enlightenment"
would occur - but nothing happened. Then, one day, at the end of April, I
met someone who offered me some windowpane acid.
I had read Dick Alpert's account of the Clear Light in his book "Be
Here Now" and wondered if this was the breakthrough I was seeking. I
had tried lysergic acid before and I knew how powerful it was but I had
never taken a large dose.
I was alone in my apartment on a Friday afternoon when I decided
to go ahead and swallow one of the tiny, flat gelatin squares. The next
forty-five minutes became an anxious period as I waited for the changes
to begin. Slowly my body began to heat up and the solid quality of the
room began to flow. The silence around me increased to a roar as my
hearing became extremely acute. A pattern of vivid images formed inside
my head, dissolved and reformed in rapid succession. I walked over to
the sink and stared in fascination as a water droplet formed on the edge
of the faucet spout and fell into the sink. The exquisite beauty of each
droplet as it formed and fell into the sink held my attention for hours.
When the effect began to wear off, I had to decide to either take a
larger dose or end the experiment. The hope that it might reveal the
mystery of my existence outweighed the fear that it might damage my
brain.
I poured the remaining crystalline squares from the vial into the palm
of my hand and swallowed them. Within fifteen minutes, the images
inside my head became more vivid as they appeared and disappeared at
an increasingly faster rate. I became aware of a stream of light that
flowed from an opening in my chest, up to the top of my head and then
outward where it flowed into the shape of the room. The room began to
change from a solid into individual particles that glowed with an inner
light. As the particles increased in brightness they moved into the
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foreground, and the solid quality of the room moved into the
background.
I looked down and discovered my arm had begun to change into a
mass of light particles. The process continued until the sense of "I" or
"me", dissolved into empty space. The loss of my human form lasted but
a short time, before my body and the room reappeared as one. The lifechanging experience I had waited for had finally happened.
I lit a candle and watched it burn for two hours. Later, I went for a
walk through the dark, cold streets before I returned and crawled into
bed.
All day Sunday, my brain felt numb. I had difficulty forming
coherent thoughts. Whatever I had experienced the night before I could
barely remember; instead, I concentrated on regaining my strength with
long walks, vitamins and nutritious food.
On Monday morning, I returned to the ward and carried on with my
duties as the last of the neural static inside my head faded away. Over the
next few months, I began to recall my mystical experience and interpret
its meaning.
My chemistry and physics lesson that I failed to grasp in high school
at last began to make sense. I had seen directly that my body and the
surrounding world was a condensed mass of light particles. The
various speeds at which the particles vibrated became what I experienced
through my senses. In other words, the world is a field of light particles
in motion.
At that moment, I understood that the biblical God I learned about in
Catholic school was not real God but a description made up by human
beings. Thus, God is a king - the highest authority that most people can
imagine.
This experienced convinced me that God is an energy field that
forms the universe. The energy is solid when condensed and transparent
when expanded. The only way for me to see this was to speed up my
own perception.
Another possibility I had wondered about for a long time became
true when I stopped in to visit Bobby at his parent's home in Whately. He
had decided to take an acid trip by himself and I stayed for a few hours
out of curiosity. We had briefly exchanged a few words during the event
when suddenly it dawned on me that each person creates his or her own
reality. Bobby and I shared the same space but his perception was
independent from mine. When my consciousness leaves this body, the
world will vanish. There are no "others."
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David and Lance
In late spring of 1977, Bobby and Mitch introduced me to David and
Lance, two individuals who were born with an extra Y-chromosome.
This was the first time I had met other men who I knew were bisexual.
Lance had a short mane of curly blonde hair and a little blond
goatee. He wore a full-length coat with a fur lining, a silk shirt and
skintight designer jeans. I found him interesting and intelligent - very
bright, well mannered, and soft-spoken. He always made an effort to
choose his words carefully to create a lively conversation.
David was equally intelligent but different in his dress and manner.
He had dark, curly hair and a round childlike face. His taste in clothing
was more casual than Lance's and when he spoke, he slipped in a selfdeprecating tone to make us laugh at his remarks.
Part of the reason I formed a bond of friendship with these two was
because they made us feel welcome. We all shared an interest in the
same topics - enlightenment, cosmic consciousness, self-realization,
astral travel, Eastern religion and philosophy.
The friendship I formed with David and Lance over the next six
months relaxed my attitude toward homosexuality. I knew the Catholic
Church condemned homosexuality as a mortal sin against God and
Nature, and the psychiatric community regarded it as a treatable
psychological condition. I did not share this view; on the contrary, the
entire time I knew them I saw nothing sinful or abnormal about them. I
found their feminine qualities a welcome change from my all-male
friends.
During one of our parties, someone came up with the idea of a trip to
Mexico and South America. The plan was to search for the "Astral
Plane" described in one of the spiritual books we were reading. I bought
into the idea and moved out of my Northampton apartment into a single
room on the hospital grounds to save money. Mitch purchased a used van
for $800 and lined the bottom with a piece of plywood and a mattress. As
the day of our departure approached, we began to load up our travel gear.
The van held five of us including an auburn-haired girl named Christine
who had joined our little group at the last minute. It was quite a load for
the old van and during the trial run around the icy streets of Hadley, I
noticed a sluggishness in the suspension system. The body of the van
swayed back and forth a little too much as we took the corners.
On a fine spring morning in early May, after a light snowfall, we
headed south on Route 202 and took the on-ramp to Route 91. As we
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picked up speed, the instability of the van came quite noticeable,
although no one said a word.
As we approached the Route 90 and Route 5 interchange, our driver,
Mitch joined in on the conversation we were having in the back of the
van and forgot to change lanes for the next turnoff. Based on our speed,
the loose snow on the road, and the weak suspension, I figured Mitch
would decide he could not make the turnoff - but I was wrong. He began
to apply the brakes and aimed for the off-ramp, which came up on us a
little too fast. Mitch made it onto the ramp but the van began to fishtail as
we hit patches of snow. The fishtailing increased as the van lost traction
and he had to fight the wheel for control. At the last possible moment,
the center of gravity shifted too far to the left, and down we went.
The rear doors popped open on impact and spilled us onto the ramp.
Miraculously no one was injured but I felt embarrassed as I ran around
trying to collect our scattered belongings. The bright side was the
entertainment we provided people in the other cars who had slowed
down to watch the show. Hello everybody! We're ok - we do this all the
time!
The tow truck operator hauled us to an auto repair shop and the
cheerful proprietor gave Mitch a reasonable bid, which we all chipped in
to pay. The van would be ready for the road the next morning.
In the meantime, the accident had changed my mind about the
wisdom of this trip. I was afraid to get back in the van and Bobby had
mentioned to me something about scoring some coke in South America
and selling it on his return. This sounded like a bad idea to me especially
since I had watched "Midnight Express" on television not too long ago.
I told the others I had changed my mind and would instead, hitchhike across the country to California - maybe to San Francisco. When
Lance heard this he immediately responded with the suggestion I visit a
small town in Marin County. He had a friend there and told me it was a
beautiful place to stay. I decided to take him up on his suggestion.
I said goodbye to the others and wished them well. I found out later I
was the first member of the group to go my own way. I went back on the
road and stuck out my thumb with the intent to travel south on Rt. 95
away from the cold and head west on Rt.10 all the way to California.
People were quite generous and it was not long before I made it to Texas.
In a small Texas town, near the highway I had a close encounter
with a peace officer. He spotted me and decided to do a routine check on
this hitchhiker and ask a few questions. He looked at my id card but he
did not search my backpack. I had a small amount of mj stashed inside
and the penalty in Texas was quite severe.
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Next, I got a brief ride from a short, fat man who turned out to be
gay. Unlike Lance and Michael, he lacked good manners and he quickly
dropped me off when I became hostile toward him. Several rides later, I
made it to Los Angeles County. One jovial fellow picked me up on the
outskirts of downtown Los Angeles and drove north on 101 toward San
Francisco. He told me he was an antique dealer from L.A. on his way to
sell antiques in Marin County.
We stopped overnight at a motel and shared a room. He slept on an
inflatable bed he brought with him while I slept in the motel bed. The
next morning as I awakened he began to make sexual advances toward
me. By now, I was no longer threatened by these propositions and I made
it clear I had no interest in him. He quickly dropped the subject and we
continued on to the City by the Bay where we parted friends.
In San Francisco, I took the Golden Gate Bus across the bridge to the
small town in Marin Lance had described to me. The place was just as he
described it, warm and friendly with no insects, snow or humidity. The
houses were modest middle-class duplexes and bungalows with a
sprinkling of white and pink adobe homes in the Spanish style. It was
nighttime and the quiet walk through the streets gave me time to ponder
my good fortune. When I reached the residence of Lance's friend, a
young man with long hair and a beard opened the door.
I explained who I was and who sent me and offered to pay rent on a
weekly basis for a place to sleep. He appeared willing to accommodate
me and offered me a spot on the living room floor since no rooms were
available. I gladly accepted his offer.
A Cheap Vacation
I agree to pay John, my new housemate, $70 a week. John and his
girlfriend occupied one of the private rooms and a man with a dark bushy
beard and a thick head of hair named Lenny occupied the second room.
Judging by his gruff, but shy manner, he could have grown up in the
backwoods of Vermont. A younger fellow, Reuben, who occupied the
third room wore a tin soldier's uniform and acted out a secret game that
only he and his friends understood. This was the experimental laboratory
where I would try out my new life as a hippie. A hippie's goal is to find
out how much fun can be had on the least amount of money. A hippie
also seeks to unravel the meaning of life and is willing to try almost
anything to find out what that is.
I decided that society's goals of make money, buy a house and raise a
family was no longer my goal. I felt the urge to wander freely,
contemplate nature, and explore the mind - at least until the money ran
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out, at which point, I could begin to look for another job. In the
meantime, I had a thousand dollar traveler's check in my wallet and a
plane ticket to Boston in my backpack.
As I began the first few days of my new life, I wandered through the
hills and found places to sit and do nothing for hours on end. Sometimes
I would practice concentrating on my breath, other times I would just sit
and observe everything around me. As the days passed by, with no
cannabis bud to smoke, a new kind of high, much cleaner and sharper
began to replace the THC in my body. I began to drink a lot of juice and
water to flush out the accumulated toxins.
At the end of the second week, one of John's friends asked me if I
wanted to work part time at a job site a few miles away. The job
consisted of pulling nails out of used lumber and other odd tasks.
"Sure, why not."
The next morning he picked me up and for about a week, I
performed the dullest job I had ever experienced. At the end of the week,
I reached my capacity for boredom and returned to riding the buses that
covered Marin County. At the end of eight weeks, my supply of money
ran low and I decided the time had come to head back home. I said
goodbye to John and took a bus to the San Francisco Airport for the
flight home. As the plane passed over the bay area, I could see what a
jewel it was and I wondered if I would ever return.
The University of Massachusetts
It was September 1978, and classes had started at UMass in the town
of Amherst, Massachusetts. For the first semester, I rented an efficiency
apartment in Belchertown, on the corner of Route 9 and Route 202. I did
not have a car so I rode the free UMASS buses to and from school. The
G.I. Bill paid my expenses and college tuition. As I began classes, I
remembered my unhappy experience at Fitchburg State and wondered if
the same resistance to classroom format would resurface at Umass. My
naval career convinced me I did better with hands on experience, than I
did with textbooks and classroom lectures.
My IQ was 120 – sufficient for small, supervised classroom
instruction. When I attended Catholic school, I relied on the nuns to train
me through repetition so I did not have to think for myself. However,
conditions changed when I became an adult. I no longer wished to
memorize information; instead, I wanted to figure things out for myself
or look it up when I needed to know something.
As I feared, the return to the classroom format triggered another
crisis. I can learn anything, given enough time - but time is limited on the
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assembly line of mass education. The professors were so overwhelmed
with students they had to hire teaching assistants to help them run the
classes and correct the papers. I managed to hang on by a few points
through the first semester but I was very unhappy with my new academic
career. At this point, an unexpected source of help appeared on the
horizon.
My brother Roger had finished his tour in Vietnam, started his own
business as an appliance repair technician and moved his family into a
home in Belchertown.
During the summer, he began to call me to baby-sit my niece and
nephew in exchange for all the food I could eat and all the television I
could watch.
This arrangement led to a plan to move me upstairs while I
continued to attend college. He also persuaded me to help him with his
new business, which he opened inside a laundromat on South Pleasant
Street in Amherst. My job was to help Penny, his employee, wash and
fold clothes, and wait on customers. This arrangement worked well for
the rest of the summer.
One morning Roger brought me a GE Toaster Oven to repair and
urged me to set up a repair table by the front counter. He also insisted I
get my own business license. Later that day a woman came into the shop,
placed an appliance on the counter and asked me if I could fix it. I looked
at the gadget and inquired, "What is it?"
To my surprise, she looked me straight in the eye and said, "You
know what? I don't have a lot of confidence in you." Something about
the way she said it triggered something inside me – a determination to
prove her wrong.
I spent the entire afternoon first with the toaster oven and then with
her water pik to discover how each one worked. After I figured out how
they both worked, I found the problem and fixed it. With success came a
good feeling – a feeling I had not experienced since I had fixed the
barracks air conditioner. It gave me hope that I had found something I
could do for a living. Something that I could tolerate.
Two weeks later, I was driving Roger's van along Route 202 after
dark when suddenly a deer leaped from the woods directly in front of the
vehicle. Before I could even hit the brakes, the van collided with the
animal and knocked it across the road. I parked the van and ran back to
find the deer struggling to get up. Another motorist stopped and together
we held it down so it would not run back onto the road and cause an
accident. As I held onto the deer's flank, I felt it shudder and saw
something - like a vapor - trickle out of the deer's body and dissipate into
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the air. At the same time, the deer relaxed and became still and I realized
it had died. The other motorist told me he was a hunter and together we
loaded the doe onto his truck.
Later, as I continued on my way to Belchertown I thought about the
animals death and wondered if that same transparent energy would
trickled from my body and evaporate into the air when I died.
In January, I returned to Umass and right away, I knew my academic
career was over. I could not stand the sterile academic style in the
textbooks; further, I had no idea what I would do with another semester
of knowledge in which I had no interest. I tried to dump the heavy math
and science courses as I had done at Vermont Community College but
this time my graduation requirements would not allow it. I had used up
all my options to get through the first semester and I has no options left.
In the last stages of burnout, I developed an incurable mental block that
stopped me from jamming any more meaningless information into my
brain. A few weeks before Christmas vacation I quit going to class and
sent back the Government GI checks.
I was done with public education.
The switch from failed student to an appliance sales and service
technician was a welcome relief. While Roger and I went on service
calls, Roger's wife, Lucille, and Penny ran the laundromat. I watched him
perform appliance repairs but I understood little of what he showed me.
In late spring, Roger and Lucille decided to rip out the laundromat
and set up an appliance store. I arrived one morning to discover half of
the washers were already gone and Roger needed more muscle to help
with the rest of them. As I stood on the concrete platform, and prepared
to slide the machine onto the floor I noticed a Romex wire protruding
from the wall. There was no need for the wire any longer so I reached
into my new toolbox for my insulated steel cutters. As an apprentice in
the electrical field, I did not think to check first for voltage. As I cut into
the 220-volt line, a huge flash and bang scared me out of my wits. In the
dead silence that followed, I stared at what remained of the blade on my
new cutters. Roger walked quickly into the back room and turned off the
circuit breaker as a small cloud of blue smoke rose into the air. Thanks to
the insulated plastic coating on the handles, I had failed at my second
attempt to kill myself.
After we set up the new store, I became comfortable sitting at my
workbench, repairing portable appliances. One day Roger informed me
that I could not make a living doing what I was doing. He said there was
very little profit in fixing toasters, shavers, and hair dryers. He insisted I
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should learn to repair major appliances, vacuum cleaners, & sewing
machines. He began to pressure me to take more responsibility and go on
service calls by myself. Carolann also began to hint that I should start
looking for my own place. I had lived upstairs in her house for nearly a
year and she missed the days when she had more privacy and storage
space. I was reluctant to accept this change and Roger was sympathetic,
but it was hard to ignore their generosity.
I eventually moved into a two-bedroom apartment at Rolling Green
in Amherst. My new roommate was a graduate student in international
education named Derek. Derek was a bright young Scotsman with a
master's degree from UMASS and a habit of reliability. In the summer of
1979, we split a $400 rent that included water and electricity. This new
living arrangement lasted ten years.
People say that significant changes begin to happen at age thirty and
I was no exception. Thirty years of struggle with highs and lows
convinced me that a life of relative happiness required intelligence and
effort. The poor living habits, the self-pity, the lazy, irresponsible
behavior I had indulged in for years was no longer acceptable. I decided
to take on more responsibility.
At the same time, Roger decided he needed more room to expand his
business and increase his profits. A short distance from Emily
Dickinson's house on Main Street, he discovered a grocery store that was
up for sale. Roger, the hard-driving businessperson pressured Diane, the
chain-smoking loan officer at the Pioneer National Bank bank, to lend
him the money. A month later, we opened for business as the new
Mutual TV and Appliance Center.
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Independence
After the grand opening at the new store, I began to pay closer
attention to how my brother managed his business. He was under
pressure to pay back the loan, pay his operating expenses and still make a
profit. His business plan drove him to operate at maximum speed all the
time - sometimes with disastrous consequences. One of his ideas was to
restore and resell secondhand appliances.
One morning I watched him use a hair dryer to melt the ice inside
used refrigerator, when suddenly the phone rang. As he ran to pick up the
phone, he left the hair dryer running and the freezer door closed on it.
When he returned five minutes later, one side of the freezer's interior had
melted into a glob of plastic and the unit was ready for the dump.
Roger put me to work helping him deliver and install refrigerators,
washers, dishwashers, dryers, stoves and air conditioners. We took away
the old appliances for salvage value or trucked them to the landfill. This
type of work is good exercise for a man of heavy stature; unfortunately, I
had a slender frame and had to strain every muscle to help him haul a
two hundred pound refrigerator on a hand dolly up three flights of stairs.
Sometimes we had to remove doors to make the deliveries and the old
appliances we took away often weighed more than the new ones we
delivered. Before long, my brother and I began to experience back pain.
Eventually Roger decided the time had come for me to go on service
calls alone. He would diagnose the problems, order parts and assign me
to install them. I also received guidance from Eddie, the new technician
that Roger hired who taught me how to diagnose and fix air conditioners.
By the end of the year, many changes had taken place. I had become
healthier after I discovered vegetable proteins were easier to digest than
animal protein. My interest in recreational drugs also began to wane as
my health improved. I began to remember the times when I relied on a
healthy diet, fresh air, sunshine and exercise, to get high.
A Trip to Canada
During one of my frequent visits to Umass looking for company I
met a young fellow named Sidney with whom I struck up a friendship.
We both shared an interest in hiking and we eventually made plans to go
on a trek through the Canadian woods after the snow had melted. Sidney
came up with a plan to spend a week in a wilderness area called
Laurentides Provincial Park.
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As a youngster, I had been to Canada with my family, and traveled
down the St. Lawrence Seaway to Lake Champlain on a ferryboat. When
driving through upstate New York, we stopped on a bridge that
overlooked Ausable Chasm, hundreds of feet below. I never forgot the
thrill of dropping leaves over the side and watching them float all the
way to the bottom. I could feel my anticipation grow as we discussed his
plan.
Summer weather arrived on the first Saturday in June as we began
the four hundred mile journey. We arrived at the Visitors Center in the
middle of a rainstorm and the girl who greeted us at the desk told us we
had to stay on marked trails. If we got into trouble outside the patrolled
areas, no one would come to rescue us. We agreed to the conditions and
signed the papers. We paid the fee for our use of the park, showed our
passports and drivers licenses and headed down the road to the trailhead.
The rain continued for another hour as I began to sweat underneath
my raincoat and wonder how much further we had to go before we set up
camp.
"How much further, Sidney?"
"A few more hours."
We stopped and he showed me on his map how much further we had
to go to reach the camping area. It was seven more miles!
Meanwhile, the rain had stopped and the sun broke through the
clouds for a short time before it dipped below the horizon. Several hours
later with the aid of flashlights, we arrived at our campsite soaked and
exhausted. I pitched my tent, crawled inside and filled my stomach with
trail mix before going to sleep. During the night, I woke up with severe
acid stomach and crawled out of the tent to look for a good spot to heave.
I felt better afterwards but the next morning I had a headache and felt
weak.
After we ate breakfast, we hit the trail just as the sun came out.
Within an hour, the sun heated the rain-soaked ground and pushed the
humidity to ninety percent. Clouds of mosquitoes and black flies dogged
us every step of the way. We donned our mosquito hats but the little
buggers found ways to get through and draw blood. As the temperature
increased, so did the angle of the trail up the side of a mountain. With the
weight of heavy backpacks to slow us down, we began to make frequent
stops.
When the temperature reached ninety degrees, we dragged ourselves
up the slope one hundred feet at a time before we collapsed and rested
for the next hundred feet. At this point, I began to wonder why I had
thought this was a great idea. At last, we reached the summit, and found
a small shelter where we camped overnight.
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On closer inspection of the map, I discovered that the shelters were
built ten miles apart - a distance that would leave us exhausted at the end
of each day. On the fifth day, I ran out of trail mix and had to beg food
from Sidney who, I discovered, carried a backpack full of canned goods!
On the sixth day, the trail brought us to the edge of a river swollen to
its banks with snowmelt. In order to get to the cabin on the other side we
would have to cross chest-deep, freezing cold water! By this time, I just
wanted to end our ordeal as soon as possible. We rested at the waters
edge for a half-hour before we began to look for another crossing point.
We eventually found a shallow spot upstream where rocks and fallen
trees allowed us to cross if we removed our hiking boots and rolled up
our pants.
When we reached the other side, we sat and talked. In the course of
our conversation, I found out that Sidney had recently joined the
Jehovah's Witnesses. He showed me his Bible and Watchtower
newsletter and I browsed through the writing looking for common
ground. At that time, I was a student of Zen Buddhism, and I was
convinced that any description of God was the product of the human
imagination. To my disappointment, Sidney did not see it that way. He
believed in an angry "Creator God" bent on punishing those who did not
follow the Witnesses interpretation. Sidney believed the Witnesses
would go on to Paradise at the end of the world and the rest of us would
suffer damnation.
Eugene's belief reminded me of my own unhappy experience with
Nina and her Catholic beliefs. It made me sad to think the world was a
mixed bag of religious cults – each claiming an exclusive God who
supported only them and punished all others. When you add nuclear
weapons to this mix, the doomsday prophecies in Sidney's Bible might
come true.
I made a half-hearted attempt to punch holes in Elmer's beliefs but
like Nina he was motivated by fear instead of common sense and he
could not give up the illusion of security.
The next morning the trail brought us to the entrance road where an
occasional car passed by until one of them kindly stopped and gave us a
ride to the parking lot. We stored our gear inside Sidney's car and began
the long drive back home. An hour later, we crossed the Canadian border
into the United States.
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Mount Washington
Two months after the trip to Canada, I mentioned to Derek, my
roommate, that we should take a hike together before the end of the
summer. My experience with Sidney had dampened my enthusiasm for
long hikes but a hike with Derek was different. When I suggested the
White Mountains of New Hampshire, he was eager to go.
On Saturday morning August 31st we set out in his car and drove
north on interstate 91. When we crossed the New Hampshire border, we
took Route 302 to the base of the Presidential Range. The highest peak
projected 6,288 feet out from the earth and supported a thick growth of
hardwood and evergreen trees at the base. Balsam fur and black spruce
covered the higher elevations up to the tree line.
We found a parking lot, donned our gear and follow the other hikers
to the Steam Cog Railroad, which pulled us up the slope toward the
summit. At the halfway point, the engineer stopped the train alongside a
water tower to refill the boiler. Derek and I stretched our legs, and waited
for the engineer to give us the signal to return to our seats.
When we reached the summit, we joined a group of hikers and
sightseers on their way to the observatory and museum. At one point, we
left the group and followed the trail along the ridge to Mount Jefferson,
the next peak over. The trail followed a dip, where we passed marked
points where freezing temperature had killed hikers in the past.
Mount Washington has a reputation for extreme weather changes
even during the summer months. The barren soil near the summit
provided no protection from wind chill.
As the sun touched the horizon, we arrived on Mount Jefferson and
followed the trail to a hiker's shelter that accommodated up to four
people. Two hikers (Chandra and Jay) had already settled in and they
agreed to share the shelter with us. As more hikers passed by, they told
us that the Rangers were ticketing people on Mount Washington who
tried to set up camp in unauthorized places. It appeared that campsites
were at a premium on Labor Day weekend.
Derek and I ate trail mix and talked into the night with the other two
before we turned in. Hours later, I awakened to the eerie sound of the
howling wind as rising thermals from the base of the range displaced
cold air from the upper atmosphere. The sound was so creepy, I listened
to it for a long time before I could go back to sleep.
The next morning we ate a cold breakfast of granola and powdered
milk. A short distance from the shelter I found a small trickle of water
that ran across a bed of moss before it shot out into space. The morning
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breeze blew some of it into a misty rainbow and the rest of it splashed
onto the rocks below.
Ordinarily I would not trust the purity of the water in the wild but
this was pure rainwater, crystal clear and ice cold. I filled an empty glass
jar and found not a single speck of dirt inside the jar. I took a swallow
and re-experienced the taste of pure well water that had gushed from the
pump at Beaman Pond.
Derek and I said our goodbyes to Chandra and Jay and headed back
toward the summit. When we arrived, Derek went to check out the
observatory while I found a warm spot at the top of a large boulder.
From this vantage point, I had a spectacular view of three states – New
Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts. At the time, I did not know that
we were experiencing one of the finest days Mount Washington had ever
offered to its visitors. The sky was a deep crystalline blue, the air a
balmy seventy degrees, and below, for hundreds of miles, the
countryside was awash in a blazing carpet of autumn colors.
At midafternoon, we decided to head down the mountain. A short
distance along the trail we came to an aluminum Quonset hut, which
provided shelter to backpackers during stormy weather. I looked inside
and I was disappointed to find nothing of interest - just a bare interior.
Farther along the trail, the plant life remained sparse until we reached the
tree line. Here we stopped to examine a variety of multicolored
mushrooms, flowers, and odd shaped rocks while a red-tailed hawk
circled lazily overhead.
Derek made good time where the trail ran level but we had to slow
down on the steep inclines. I was concerned about Derek's weak ankles
but he seemed fine and in excellent spirits. We took turns leading and the
faster we moved the more he seemed to enjoy it. At one point, we came
to a spot where moisture came to the surface and formed a slippery layer
of green algae on the rocks. This is where Derek finally lost his footing
and fell.
I waited while he checked his ankle to see if he had sustained
bruises. Nothing appeared on the surface but he must have wrenched the
joint because he could not walk on it. We talked over his predicament
and we agreed that I should go on ahead and get help while he waited for
rescue. This was not part of our plan and I grumbled to myself as I
hurried down the trail. I was not angry with Derek; I was just
disappointed that our perfect day had ended this way.
I made it to the road by dusk and managed to locate a ranger who
directed me to Rescue Headquarters. As luck would have it, the rescue
team inside the building had finished a grueling mission and was trying
to recuperate. When I told them about Derek, a chorus of groans went up
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around the room. I felt sorry for them as they gathered up their
equipment and followed me back to the trailhead. We had hiked a few
hundred yards when I saw a dark figure ahead. It was Derek.
We thanked the rescuers for their trouble and started back to the
parking lot. Halfway there, we came across a magnificent sight at
Franconia Notch. Water plunged down a narrow gorge into a large, open
cistern near the Visitors Center. We both stopped and gazed in
fascination at the thundering mass of bubbles and mist that sparkled in a
rainbow of colors beneath the spotlights.
When we reached Derek's car I drove him to the nearest hospital to
get his ankle x-rayed and wrapped in a pressure bandage. Shortly after
midnight, we arrived back in Amherst.
Monaco
As the months passed, my brother, Roger, beefed up his sales pitch
and won several free trips by selling a record number of Zenith
televisions. He and Carolann had gone on several of these "win a trip"
vacations before he decided to offer me a free trip to the Italian Riviera
in Monaco.
"But I didn't win the contest," I said.
"Do you want it or not?"
"Well… sure."
"Good! Then get going," he said as he slapped me on the back.
I went home that night and began to pack my luggage for my first
trip to Europe.
The airline flight was nonstop from Boston to Monaco. After we
landed at the airport, I boarded a bus and checked in at a fancy hotel. The
moment I got my room, I ducked out of the group activities program and
headed for the slope above the downtown area. This was the place where
the grapes and olives grew and small white and pink villas dotted the
hills above the Mediterranean Sea.
I found a good spot to sit and watch people walk up and down the
stone stairs on the hillside. When I grew tired of that, I found another
spot under a tree where I had a full view of the beaches and the sailboats
that filled the marina. Finally, in late afternoon I found a small church
where a couple exchanged vows in a wedding ceremony.
That evening I took a chance and boarded a bus that carried my
group of Zenith trip winners far out into the desert to an exotic
restaurant. The entertainment included a huge feast and live music. I sat
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at a long, table and spent most of my time passing plates of food. No one
told me beforehand that I should take small samples from each course;
instead, I ate what I needed on the first two courses and had nothing left
to do but sit.
I was ready to go back to the hotel and crawl into bed when the
entertainment began. A loud band kicked off the evening accompanied
by dancing and live performances that won loud applause from the
audience. I was beginning to sweat from the heat and become very
thirsty so I went to the men's room and tried to drink the water out of the
tap. The water was alkaline like San Diego water and tasted horrible. I
went to the kitchen crew and tried to communicate with hand signals my
need for drinkable water. My presence clearly irritated them and they
pretended not to understand my message.
The thought occurred to me that bottled water might be a precious
commodity here in Monaco and they did not want to give any away. At
last, one member of the crew opened a bottle from the shelf and gave it
to me. I tried to thank him but he just shook his head in disgust at the
troublesome American.
The party in the dining area at last appeared to wind down. The
waiters began to clear the tables and the guests headed for the coatrooms.
Outside the restaurant, beneath a canopy of twinkling stars, the bus idled
in the cold desert air. Back in the bus, I had the strange notion that I
could relax and go to sleep. Wrong. Those in the front section shared my
desire to sleep but for those in the rear section, the party had just begun.
The intoxicated laughter and talking rose and fell in waves as we
rode the sixty miles back to town. When we arrived at the hotel, I
crawled into bed and promised myself to carry earplugs should I ever
sign up for another group outing.
The next morning I slept late, ate brunch and explored the hotel. On
the roof, I discovered a swimming pool so I put on my bathing suit and
relaxed in the sun for a while. As time passed, I wondered what it would
be like to be a member of the idle rich. I could lie by this pool everyday
and do nothing but eat and watch television.
The next day our group visited a perfume factory that pressed the oil
from rose petals and stored them in tiny perfume bottles. I watched in
fascination, as our guide showed us the different steps of the process.
Later, we toured a cave led by an aging Frenchman with a short
fuse. At one point, I allowed the group to get ahead of me as I stopped to
take a closer look at a cluster of stalactites that hung from the cave
ceiling. The Frenchman quickly noticed me and stopped the tour.
"What do you think you're doing!" he shouted at me from the front
of the group. "I will not put up with stragglers! Get back with the group!"
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I was shocked that he would yell at me in front of everyone, as if I
was a naughty child, and I quickly got back in line.
On the day of our departure, the travel agency scheduled us for a
morning shopping spree in the downtown area. I chose instead to remain
at the open-air hotel lobby and watch the play between the tourists and
the local merchants. An hour before departure, a female member of our
party, named Jackie got into an argument with the hotel manager over
the bill. As I watched, I remembered her as the loudest party girl on the
bus. Apparently, she had consumed all the little bottles of liquor from the
refrigerator in her room in the mistaken belief they were a
complimentary gift from the hotel. Her heavy drinking had caught up
with her and now these hateful people would not let her leave until she
paid the one hundred dollar bill she owed them. As I watched, she
became increasingly hysterical and finally burst into tears.
The leader of the group, Jon Medford, arrived and arranged for his
travel agency to cover the expense so she could leave with the rest of us.
Jon spoke with her to calm her down before he allowed her to board the
bus.
An hour later, we boarded the plane at the airport and said goodbye
to the Italian Riviera. The view of Monaco from the air impressed me as
much as the view of San Diego and San Francisco. The Roman
architecture, the fountains and parks, the downtown area, the museums,
hillside villas and vineyards all sparkled beneath the Italian sun. As the
plane banked to the left, the light reflected off the blue Mediterranean in
a dazzling display of sun stars.
Back to Work
My job at the store began to settle into a predictable routine. I would
arrive at 8 a.m., answer the phone, sell appliances and televisions, and
perform repairs at my workbench.
Because of our success, Roger approached Diane at the bank and
borrowed more money to purchase a television store in Ware, Mass.
called EZ TV. He also bought an old truck and hired a three-man crew to
blow cellulose insulation into the walls and attics of houses. Later he
began selling solar heating units - giant plastic mattresses that inflated
with a fan and provided warm air when heated by the sun. He called his
new venture "Conservation Answers."
During periods when there was nothing to do I watched the car
demolition contest across the street. Cars traveling down Main Street at a
fast clip collided with cars that turned left from a stop sign at the bottom
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of the hill. It was astonishing how many motorists at the stop sign would
underestimate the speed of the oncoming cars.
The regularity of the crashes and the calls I made to the police
helped relieve some of the boredom but it was not enough to satisfy me. I
needed more.
Since I left home five years earlier, I had not had a good fight with
Nina and she must have sensed this because one day she decided to
surprise me with an unscheduled visit. I did not hate Nina but we no
longer had anything in common. I had diagnosed her as a threat to my
happiness and I kept my distance. It never occurred to me that she would
cross the line.
Buzz, buzz.
"Who's there?"
"Mama."
I opened the door and looked down the hall to the main entrance.
"Holy sh--!" What is she doing here?"
"What do you want?" I shouted.
"I want to see you. Please open the door."
"What for?"
I watched her become impatient and begin to argue.
"Why are you acting this way? I just wanted to stop in to say hello
and see your apartment."
I tried to think of a polite way to discourage her but nothing came to
mind. Finally, I gave up and decided to hell with it, just let her in and see
what happens.
"Alright, I'm coming."
I walked down the hallway and I opened the inside door. She wore
dark sunglasses and looked uncomfortable as she stared at me.
"Hi."
"Hi."
"Is everything okay with you?" she said as she followed me back to
my apartment.
"Yes. Everything is fine,"
When we reached the open doorway, I turned and blocked her way.
She moved her head back and forth trying to see past me into the
apartment.
"Well, I'm glad to hear that. Who else lives here?"
She was trying her utmost to be friendly but I was way beyond any
hope of reconciliation. After years of spankings and fear-based religious
dogma, I felt indifferent to her.
I took a deep breath and said, "Look, Ma, I am not prepared for a
visit so if you don't mind I would like to be left alone."
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Her eyes widened behind her dark glasses as she became belligerent.
"I am not picking on you. Why are you being so rude?"
"I am not asking you, Ma, I'm telling you. I think you should leave.
It was a mistake for you to come here without asking."
I stood firm and waited for the message to sink in. She fidgeted and
struggled against this unexpected reaction. Finally, she turned around
and left. I watched her drive away and felt a mixture of relief – and
sadness.
Getting Straight
In February 1980, I felt the annual midwinter depression arrive,
accompanied by an impulse to clean up my act.
After my discharge from the Navy, I had shaved off my beard and
mustache, threw away my love beads, and stopped using foul language.
After that, I abandoned my junk food diet and switched to vegetables,
nuts and seeds, raw fruit, grains and milk. Now I decided to end my
decade long experiment with the entheogens such as cannabis, magic
mushrooms, LSD and peyote, and become a teetotaler. I had tried coke
once but it gave me a headache and heroin was out of the question.
My favorite drug of choice, Cannabis Sativa, had for years, provided
me with pleasure and esoteric experiences, but after I adopted a healthier
lifestyle, it interfered with what I was trying to achieve. I had discovered
that keeping the internal pathways clean allowed more energy to pass
through me. The result was greater clarity, health and happiness. I had
reached a crossroads where I had to choose between the higher energy of
a drug free life and the lower energy of chemical dependency. I could not
have it both ways.
Some people claim that cannabis is an addictive drug but this
depends on how you define addiction. My definition is a severe physical,
emotional and mental reaction by the body to the withdrawal of a
substance. Nothing of the sort ever happened to me with marijuana. I
missed it when I ran out but I never experienced withdrawal symptoms.
I decided the simplest way to break the habit of pleasure associated
with smoking grass was to reprogram the receptors in my brain. One day
I swallowed a mouthful of raw, ground - up, cannabis and waited a half
hour for my stomach to send a distress signal to my brain. The
indigestible plant material made me feel nauseous until I emptied my
stomach. I did this twice in two days and it worked. From that time on
when I thought of cannabis, I felt discomfort and nausea. Over the next
six months, the thought of getting stoned still arose but the impulse was
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weak and I did not act on it; instead, I looked to other activities to give
me pleasure.
Recession
In the winter of 1980, Massachusetts entered a recession and the
fallout began to affect business. Days passed by with no customers. A
few customers would look but not buy, and I did not try to pressure them.
One day, Sharon, our bookkeeper, suggested Roger look at the profit and
loss figures. He discovered he was $20,000 in debt. Roger stated that this
figure was misleading and insisted the situation was only temporary.
My brother had a reputation for getting in over his head but always
coming out on top. Unfortunately, more problems than he could deal
with began to appear. The new age of electronics had dawned and our
TV repairperson, Quinn, at EZ TV could not understand the new solidstate circuitry. He was accustomed to troubleshooting tubes, resistors,
and diodes. The new printed circuit boards and chips did not fit his
knowledge base and it left him scratching his head.
Peter, our man in charge of the insulation crew suffered from a weak
back and did not make enough money pumping insulation to feed his
large family. Eddie, our technician also suffered from back pain from
lifting too many heavy appliances. Roger felt the pressure bearing down
on him and I wondered what it would take to make him crack.
At 7 p.m. on a Monday night, I got a call from Penny that something
had happened to Roger, and Carolann wanted us to come over and see
him. When we arrived, we found Roger sitting at the table - unable to
communicate. At first, I thought he was faking it but the more I tried to
get him to respond to my questions the more I realized my brother had
lost control. A catatonic person cannot respond because a portion of the
central nervous system has shut down to protect it from damage. I tried
to appear optimistic and made a few jokes, but inside I began to worry.
What if this condition became permanent? What would we do?
Carolann was very upset. Her hands shook as she lit a cigarette and
placed it between his lips. I thought this was a curious move since Roger
did not smoke tobacco. I decided that because Carolann depended on
cigarettes to cope with her life, she believed this would help Roger.
During the next hour, the three of us discussed the situation as Roger
looked on. By 8:30 p.m., Penny and I decided there was nothing we
could do and decided to leave.
The next morning Roger appeared at the store, apparently cured and
unwilling to discuss what happened.
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"Aren't you going to talk about it?" I said.
"Talk about what?"
"About what happened last night."
"Not with you."
"Why not?"
"Because it's none of your business."
"It certainly is. I was partly responsible for it because you allowed
me to complain to you for hours on end yesterday, when you should have
told me to shut up and get off your back."
"Well, I'm telling you to shut up now. How's that?"
"Okay."
"Okay."
After that episode, I decided not to nag him anymore.
Two weeks later a crewmember on the insulation team quit and Peter
needed a replacement. When Roger asked me to fill the vacancy, I
remembered his stress - related collapse and decided not to argue.
My new job was hard, cold and dirty work. Peter drove an old truck
loaded with bags of chemically treated cellulose insulation and pumped
the paper pulp into the space between the inner and outer walls of a
house. The final step was to climb into the attic and pump the insulation
into the crawl space. At times the machine jammed and quit, it would
rain, or snow or a cold front would move in from Canada and drop the
temperature to 20 degrees F. I began to dream of my comfortable job
back in the store.
As the recession deepened, Roger decided he had to act decisively to
stop the hemorrhaging of his investments. He sold EZ TV and began to
move the appliances to different storage barns around Amherst in an
attempt to save money. He dropped the extra phone line and hired a new
repairperson, Donnie, to replace Eddie, who had left.
The recession did not let up as he hoped; instead, it forced him to
negotiate with White-Westinghouse to take back some of the appliances.
At the same time, he considered selling his home and business and trying
something else such as buying a Hampton Beach Hotel in New
Hampshire.
Meanwhile, Donnie, our new technician and I clicked immediately. I
never asked him but he looked Polish to me with his beard, mustache and
a bald spot on top of his head.
By the end of the year, Roger had found a possible buyer for his
failing business -- a young Southern gentleman named Morgan Davis.
Morgan had a beautiful young wife and a little daughter named Christine.
He had worked on refrigeration systems for Baskin-Robbins ice cream
parlors for years and now he wanted his own business. He was a good-
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looking young man with straight black hair and a goatee. He was also
eager to borrow the money to buy the business despite the fact that
Roger's business statement deserved a close examination thanks to a
substantial pile of accounts receivable. The two of them, nevertheless fed
each other's desire to remedy their current situation. Roger was anxious
to escape his ailing business and Morgan wanted to escape his job of
installing two hundred pound compressors. They signed the papers and
began their new careers.
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The Winds of Change
As the recession pushed Mutual closer to the rocky shore of
bankruptcy, my roommate developed an interest in a new girl in his
department at Umass. Margaret O'Reilly became a frequent topic in our
dinner conversations until I began to worry that this was a warning of an
imminent change in my living arrangement. I began to look around for a
new place to live even before Derek asked Margaret to move in with
him.
Through a mutual friend, I heard about an upstairs room for rent in
the home of a ninety-year-old senior citizen named Jennie Richards.
Jennie kept herself out of a nursing home by pacing back and forth at
night with her walker. This kept her joints from stiffening up, so she
could still get around. She was a good woman but hard of hearing and
terrified of dying. She kept a Bible next to her wheel chair and read it
constantly.
After Margaret moved in with Derek and I moved in with Jenny,
everything went downhill. I could have conversations with Jenny the
way I could with Derek, without upsetting her. One day I accidentally
left one of my books called "Easy Death" by Da Freejohn, in plain sight.
When she saw it, she freaked out and thought I planned to commit
suicide.
Once a week, the minister of her local church stopped by to pay her a
visit. I remained in my room upstairs while he offered consoling words
about God, Jesus and Heaven. The upstairs room provided me with a
secluded environment for reading and meditating but isolation soon led
to boredom. I no longer had a television so I relied on downtown
Amherst a half block away to provide entertainment.
In the beginning, Jenny and I got along reasonably well but little
things began to affect our relationship. Her hearing was poor which
forced me to repeat my words. In the morning, she would shuffle into the
kitchen with her walker, all smiles, and cook a bowl of oatmeal on the
gas stove. After she finished eating the oatmeal, she experienced a
queasy stomach and congestion in her head and began to complain to me
about it. This began to occur every morning until I took her complaints
seriously and suggested she switched to fresh fruit, which was easier on
her digestion and did not create congestion.
She listened to my advice but continued to eat the oatmeal and
complain. As the fall season approached, I felt I could not cope with the
winter blues and Jenny's company at the same time. I began to check the
paper for another place to live.
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Several weeks later, I answered an ad for a housemate a short
distance away on Route 116. The leaseholder was a fifty-year-old teacher
named Brock Russell with whom I felt comfortable and quickly decided
it was safe to move in. On a Saturday morning, Brock felt that the
autumn leaves in the backyard needed raking. The day was windy and I
suggested that he wait for a calm day when the leaves would not blow
around.
After he finished breakfast, he went outside and I watched him
through the window as he raked the blowing leaves into piles and lit one
of them on fire! I could not believe my eyes as I watched the wind scatter
the burning leaves across the lawn! I grabbed the phone and called the
fire department, which arrived within minutes to douse the flames.
Two weeks later both of us moved out because we could not find a
third housemate to help pay the rent. I also suspected after more strange
behavior from Brock that he suffered from mental instability.
In the last week of August, I investigated a room for rent on Long
Plain Road, Route 63 in Leverett. The house was originally a barn, the
front half of which the owner converted into a three bedroom apartment
with a wood stove. Two roommates already lived upstairs, which left me
the downstairs bedroom. I like the novelty of living out in the country
with a wood stove, so I took the room.
Self-Employment
Morgan was now in command at Mutual TV and Appliance and
Donny and I quickly realized that he was an easy-going boss. I remained
in the store while the two of them went out on service calls. Morgan's
plan was to "beat the bushes" to drum up more business. He joined the
Chamber of Commerce and attended their dinners. He contacted Roger's
old customers and visited the colleges to establish new relationships.
Unfortunately, several obstacles stood in his way. The first was a
stagnant economy and the other was Morgan's lack of experience. The
third problem was Morgan's assumption that Roger's old customers were
eager to do business with the new owner.
At first, the excitement of owning his own business helped Morgan
to disregard the flat profit margin. As the months passed and nothing
changed, he began to realize that he had invested in a white elephant.
Donnie and I saw the writing on the wall long before Morgan switched
from optimism to worry. Customers did not come to the store and the
phone did not ring the way it had during the early years. Morgan had no
choice but to apply for a second loan to pay the bills.
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As Morgan continued to beat the bushes, Donnie took me on service
calls and showed me the tricks that Eddie and Roger did not have time to
show me. At the end of the day, we returned to the store to relax and
chat. Donnie would buy the Amherst Record and read the articles aloud
in such a way that both of us would laugh hysterically. This was the
comic relief I could not have with Nina.
The saddest part of this story was the strained relationship between
Morgan and his wife. Their marriage changed from happy to stressful
and within six months, they separated. Donnie and I decided not to worry
about the situation because there was nothing we could do. Mutual was
sinking and we were prepared to abandon ship when Morgan called it
quits.
He made the call in mid July of 1981.
After Mutual closed its doors, Donnie found a job working for the
Foster- Farrar Company in Northampton. He bought a new van and
stocked it with parts and equipment to start his own business. He barely
had time to enjoy his new enterprise when a car plowed into him at an
intersection and totaled the van. The last time I saw him he was back to
driving his Jeep.
Mutual was now a memory. The merchandise went back to Zenith
and White-Westinghouse and Morgan, Donnie, and I, went our separate
ways. John Stuart, the owner of Kentfield Hardware, kindly let me rent a
small space in the back of his store. Here I eked out a living repairing
appliances, vacuum cleaners and sewing machines. The new arrangement
could have lasted for years but the same conditions that sank Mutual also
slowed business at the hardware store.
As the months passed the store lost money until John could not pay
the bills. I spoke with Rick Johnson, the stock manager and he told me
about a garage at 63 South Pleasant Street that I could convert into a
repair shop. Someone would have to remove the garage door and put in a
glass storefront but the rent was $80 a month. I saw my opportunity and I
grabbed it.
I hired a carpenter and his two assistants to remove the garage door
and build the storefront. While they worked, I brought in my equipment
and hired a sign maker to build a street sign. Later I hired an electrician
to run an electrical conduit from the garage next door. The total bill
including inspection fees was fourteen hundred dollars. Within two
weeks, I was in business as Amherst Repair Service on the main street in
Amherst, Massachusetts
At last, I had gained control over every aspect of my life. The
floodgates opened and my spirit soared to a new high. I had achieved my
dream of becoming an independent operator.
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The first step in my new business enterprise was to organize the
parts I needed into backpacks so I could transport them around town on a
moped. I know this sounds crazy but when money is tight, you make do
with what is available. I soon realized the moped was a poor choice. I
should have purchased a used motorcycle to get up the steep hills.
During bad weather, my customers would sometimes drive me to their
homes and bring me back in exchange for a reduced rate.
At graduation time, students at UMass brought me their dorm
refrigerators after they punched holes in the freezer with sharp
instruments, trying to get rid of the ice. The smart method is to turn off
the refrigerator and leave the door open overnight with a pan in the
bottom to catch the ice melt. I could patch and recharge half of them but
the rest went to the landfill.
Heat is a major cause of failure in refrigerators, dehumidifiers and
air conditioners, so when the summer ends in Massachusetts, the busy
world of appliance repair slows to a crawl. The snow and rain of winter
also brought a flood of water into my new shop. On some mornings, I
arrived to find four inches of water up against the door and when I
opened it, the water would pour inside.
Someone built a dry well to drain the water away from the building
but the drainpipe collapsed when another person built a skating rink on
top of it. I developed a routine to pull up the metal grate and drop a sump
pump into the trough to pump out the water. The mopping of the cement
floor took about a half hour but it was always clean as a result.
One extremely cold morning I opened the garage next to mine and
found someone's poor cat frozen inside. The unfortunate animal
apparently wandered into the garage and it became trapped after
someone closed the door.
The Yellow Sun
A small group of health-conscious people started a small co-op in
Amherst called the Yellow Sun, which handled natural food products in
bulk. The co-op was close to my shop so I applied for a job cleaning the
place after hours. I worked alone in the evening for one hour in exchange
for food credit. The job put me in touch with the literature, products and
people in this newly emerging food culture. Before long, I became a fullblown health food junkie.
On Sundays, I ground up raw wheat berries on a hand grinder to
make homemade bread. While the dough was rising, I rode my bicycle to
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the nearby town of Pelham where a professor who taught classes at
Hampshire College provided me with a quart of raw goat's milk for one
dollar. Later a trip to Wagner Farm netted me a gallon of raw cow's milk
for the same amount. The Wagners had a small shed with an old
refrigerator full of milk in gallons and a tin can in which to put the dollar.
I knew that drinking raw milk was risky but as long as my suppliers
remained healthy, I was willing to take my chances.
The switch from processed, preserved food to food in its natural or
raw state brought a marked improvement in my health. When I did
develop a cold, headache or sore throat, I learned how to cure it quickly.
The job lasted for ten years until "Bread and Chocolate" health food store
opened in Northampton, and the Yellow Sun slowly faded away.
One discovery I made not connected with the Yellow Sun was the
use of a humidifier during a cold snap when the air becomes extremely
dry. I discovered that my throat dried out while I slept and airborne
bacteria passed through the mucous membrane, which, when moist acted
as a natural antibiotic barrier. By adding moisture to the air, the
membrane remained moist and blocked the bacteria. In a few instances
when my throat still became sore, I took zinc lozenges.
I also reduced dramatically the number of colds and headaches by
not stuffing myself at mealtime and by drinking more water between
meals.
In the winter of 1986, more changes forced me to worry once again
about my future. Appliance repair in New England is a seasonal business
that rises with the heat and dies with the cold. Several winters had gone
by with a drop-off in business but this year my business hit rock bottom.
I found myself isolated in my shop for days on end with absolutely
nothing to do except pace back and forth and wait for the phone to ring.
If I had more smarts and motivation, I would have learned to
perform small electrical, plumbing, and telephone jobs. However, this
would require a car or truck to carry all my equipment and I did not want
to add more expense to my operation.
Sometimes it takes outside intervention to force change. The owner
of the building decided to sell out and move to Boston. He sold the
building to another investor and the new proprietor visited me from time
to time with rent increases. This was the first time I heard the term
"market value" and because of my ignorance of business investments, I
had no idea that rising real estate values would affect my rent. Within
three years, the monthly rent on my 10'x12' cinderblock garage increased
from eighty dollars to two hundred and eighty dollars a month.
Compared with business space today this was still a bargain but my
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meager income could not cope with it. I began to think about moving to a
milder climate where I could use a motorcycle year round.
I had about thirty five hundred dollars saved up so I checked with a
trucking company and found out they would truck my possessions to San
Francisco for twelve hundred dollars. The plane ticket would cost five
hundred dollars and this would leave me with eighteen hundred to
survive on until I became established. This was an insane business plan,
but I decided to go through with it anyway.
I sold as many items as I could and left the rest for the trucker and
his wife to transport to San Rafael, California. In retrospect I should have
left most of it behind and started over with the money I wasted
transporting it.
I drove to Vermont to say goodbye to my parents. Owen had retired
from Heywood-Wakefield, which left him with little to do except to relax
in his easy chair, smoking cigars. He had difficulty when he tried to
stand up to greet me and had difficulty remembering words when he tried
to talk. I did not say anything but inside I felt that I might not see him
alive again.
Nina had used the master bedroom to collect and store all kinds of
religious books and artifacts. She also turned off half of the steam
radiators to save money. The stone and mortar fireplace in the backyard
where we used to have cookouts had cracked and crumbled, and the
swing set was rusting away. The rowboat, which they stored under a tarp,
had disappeared. The garden was full of weeds and the neighborhood
was full of kids whose faces I did not recognize. The library where I
spent many happy hours reading and checking out books was now a
museum. My childhood world had vanished.
Marin County
On July 16, 1987, the Boeing 747 flight I took from Boston landed at
SFO - San Francisco International Airport. From there I took a bus to
Sausalito in Marin County. The contrast between the hot, humid air of
Amherst and the cool bay air of Sausalito erased any doubts I had about
the wisdom of my decision. I would no longer suffer the rained out
weekends and mosquitoes of summer and the cold, grey overcast of
winter in the Northeast.
I took the bus to Mill Valley and located Derek McLaughlin's
brother, Bart – who was not expecting me and not happy to find out I
wanted to crash on his living room floor. He put up with me for about a
week then dropped me off at "Bermuda Palms", a motel on East
Francisco Blvd in San Rafael where I stayed for another week.
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In the meantime, my truckers had arrived and instead of twelve
hundred dollars, they wanted two thousand dollars to unload my
belongings at a storage facility on Canal Street. This was not good news.
After I paid them, I had eight hundred dollars in my wallet, no place to
live and no job.
For the next few days, I checked the paper for places to live and
discovered a new listing for a house sitter. I rushed to the nearest
payphone and called the number. A Chinese woman named Sylvie
answered and told me she needed someone to stay in her house. I told her
my situation and we came to an agreement. She came to the motel to
pick me up and took me to her home to show me the master bedroom.
We struck a deal and a week later, she let me use her car to transfer my
equipment into her garage.
After I had moved in with her and her two teenage children, I began
to wonder why she needed a house sitter. I soon found out that what she
needed was someone to protect her from her estranged husband, Rodney
who was in jail for assault. Rodney was soon to be released and had
promised to take back "his" baby when he got out of jail. Apparently, she
needed another male to act as her protector. As time passed, nothing
happened but I was worried about my role in this custody battle.
As time passed, I got my business license and performed much
painting and yard work over the next six months. Sometimes I used
Sylvie's car and sometimes customers would pick me up. Life became a
pleasant routine except for one small problem - Sylvie's three-year-old
daughter, Aloha. She would break into screaming fits that would last up
to a half hour for no apparent reason and nobody could calm her down.
One day I could not take her screaming any longer so I picked her
up, carried her outside, and walked her up and down the street for ten
minutes. The screaming stopped immediately. Apparently, she just
wanted to get out of the house! I repeated the same exercise over the next
few weeks and each time it worked like a charm.
At the end of six months, Sylvie felt she needed a more active social
life so she decided to join a church group. One of their requirements was
for each new member to stand and tell the others about oneself. After she
became comfortable with her new friends, she told them she had
separated from, but not divorced, her husband. Later she added that
another man now lived in the house with her. This conflicted with the
moral standards of the group and they made it clear that if she wanted to
remain a member she needed to fix this problem. Shortly thereafter,
Sylvie found a high school girl to replace me – and pay rent.
Not long after I left, her husband, Gomer got out of jail and won
visiting rights. A month later, he succumbed to one of his inner voices
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and fled to England with Aloha. Over the next six months, Sylvie spent
fifty thousand dollars on a private investigator to track Gomer and
recover the child.
After I moved out of Sylvie's house, I moved to a small town in
Marin where I rented the bottom unit of a duplex near the downtown
area. I had saved enough money through painting and yard work to
purchase a 20-year-old CX 500 Honda motorcycle, which became my
transportation. My dream was to find enough appliance jobs to drop
painting and yard work. I was booked a month in advance with these
boring jobs that paid my bills.
On my first paint job, a woman hired me to paint a new ceiling,
which I finished in record time. The next morning she called me back
and said that I should come over and see for myself that something was
wrong. When I arrived, I could not believe what I saw. Half of the paint I
had rolled on hung in strips from the ceiling. The week before, I had
purchased a do-it-yourself book on painting and even read the chapter on
the importance of primer but somehow I failed to understand the
lesson. I apologized, peeled off the latex strips and started over.
My last paint job took place two years later. I was already beginning
to burn out when I agreed to paint a bedroom. Halfway through the job
something inside me said "I cannot do this any longer" and my arm
would no longer move the roller. I finished the wall I had started,
apologized to the owner and walked out.
The yard work career ended at about the same time as the painting. I
had raked leaves for hours and stuffed them into lawn bags. I was bored
out of my mind and extremely tired. I finished the work, received
payment and refused any more yard work.
Meanwhile, the appliance repair business had begun to pick up after
I printed up flyers and put thousands of them on mailboxes and inside
front doors. Later I found out I could have saved myself the trouble by
simply running a one-inch ad in the Pacific Sun weekly newspaper.
The first garbage disposer I installed taught me to pay closer
attention to what I was doing. I read the instructions and installed the unit
under the sink but I forgot to tighten the unit all the way into the grove
on the collar. I filled the sink with water, pulled the stopper and flipped
on the wall switch. The disposer immediately spun loose from the collar
and allowed the entire sinkful of water to empty into the cabinet below.
As the water raced across the kitchen floor my customer stopped by to
inquire, "How's it going?"
After I mopped up the water, I put the disposer back in place and
correctly secured it to the collar. My customer took it in stride and joked
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that she would have me back again when the floor needed cleaning. (She
never did call me back.)
A month later, I received a call from a San Rafael property owner
who wanted me to have a look at a shower that had a "loose soap dish."
When I arrived, I found a hole in the shower wall but no soap dish. I had
a feeling there was more to the problem than just a missing soap dish so I
knocked on the tenants' door downstairs and asked them to show me their
shower. Sure enough, the ceiling contained a huge water blister that
appeared ready to collapse. I took my screwdriver and poked a hole in
the center and the water began to drain out into the tub.
One of my customers called me after her electric clothes dryer made
a buzzing noise when she tried to turn it on. I took the machine apart and
found a dead rat stuck inside the fan housing. I had to pull it out in pieces
with a pair of pliers.
A week before Thanksgiving, a customer hired me to replace a
thermostat on a wall oven. After I finished the job, I turned the power
back on and I heard a loud bang. I turned the power back off and opened
up the control panel. Inside I discovered the thermostat sensor tube had
touched one of the bare terminals on the selector switch. The short circuit
destroyed the new thermostat and cost me two hundred dollars.
When I tried to order a replacement I found out the part was no
longer available from the factory until after New Years. I finished the job
six weeks later and she never called me again.
I met my first "collector" in the town of Fairfax when I got a call
about a refrigerator that "wasn't working." When I knocked on the door,
a woman opened it and I introduced myself. As I followed her inside, I
noticed she had turned her living quarters into an elaborate obstacle
course. I had to climb over piles of old newspapers, magazines, food
wrappers, paper plates, and other collectibles. By the time I made it to
the refrigerator, I was having second thoughts about the job. When I
opened the door, I discovered the interior was crawling with maggots.
This time I had no problem jumping over the piles of trash and racing out
the front door.
A few years after I settled in Marin County, I perfected my appliance
repair skills and moved on to electrical, plumbing, telephone, and small
handyman jobs.
As a technician with thirty-five years experience, I have watched the
quality of appliances spiral downward and the price go up. Until about
1990, appliance repair was a straightforward business a person of
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average intelligence could learn. Washing machines needed belts,
pumps and lid switches. Gas ovens needed new igniters, and clothes
dryers needed new drum rollers, heating elements, and thermal fuses.
Dishwasher drains clogged, garbage disposers jammed and refrigerator
defrost thermostats failed. These were routine problems that happened
repeatedly and were easy to fix with parts that I carried in my backpack.
Around 1990 engineers came up with the new idea of putting
computer chips and circuit boards inside appliances. If they worked in
computers, cars and cell phones why not all household appliances? The
moment they did this, they turned the industry upside down for many of
the repair people. The new electronic control boards ran on 12 volts
instead 120 which saves electricity. Good idea, right? Wrong. Electronic
boards are sensitive to moisture, temperature, voltage fluctuations and
vibrations. Compared with the old 110-volt timers, selector switches,
rheostats, thermostats and on-off push buttons the new technology is,
overall, the weakest and most expensive part of the appliance.
The new circuit boards last half as long, cost twice as much, and are
more difficult to diagnose than the old 120-volt timers If I special order
an expensive control board and it fails to fix the problem I cannot return
it or use it on the next job. Still, there is hope. A new generation of smart,
highly trained and highly paid technicians is beginning to take over the
industry where the do-it-yourselfer who learns by trial and error can no
longer keep up the pace.
Holosync
In July of 1997, I received a letter from the co-owner of a company
called Tools for Exploration. The letter introduced me to a company
called Centerpointe Research that produced an audio training program
called Holosync. I visited their website and read their introduction to the
course. The program is based on Nobel laureate's llya Prigogyne's
research which concluded that complex systems under stress either
collapse or reorganize. The program sounded to me like a way to boost
my intelligence so I ordered the introduction.
The first time I donned the stereo headphones and listened to the
tape I felt pressure begin to build inside my head. The actual sounds were
of a rainforest in the middle of a downpour accompanied by singing birds
and vibrations from Tibetan singing bowls.
I soon realized that it was not the sounds from the rainforest that
created the cranial pressure but the low audio frequencies in the
background. The pressure became so intense I had to remove the
headphones.
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While I waited for the pressure to ease off, I read the theory behind
the holosync technology and learned that the program consisted of
vibrations delivered by a carrier wave. As the vibrations dropped into the
Delta range, they exceeded my brain's processing capability at the
conscious level. As I reached my limit, I had to fight the urge to fall
asleep. By remaining awake in the Delta range, I broadened my
awareness.
Studies done on brain changes after exposure to Holosync reveal
additional neural pathways between the left and right hemispheres. To
me this was equivalent to upgrading a computer to a higher speed.
Over the years, I learned to take the pressure in small doses until I
adapted and no longer noticed it. Eventually I switched from cassette
tapes to CDs and set up a CD player next to my bed so I could listen for
an hour each morning before I got out of bed.
After five years, I finished the twelve levels of the one thousand
dollar program. During that period, I experiencing alternating moods of
ecstasy and depression as I dealt with the subconscious material stirred
up inside my head.
As with all my experiments, the end result was not what I expected. I
expected something fantastic to happen; instead, I reached a state of
clarity and calmness. I was free of the ups and downs I had experienced
most of my life.
I began to notice a marked improvement in my ability to diagnose
and solve problems that had stumped me in the past. The knot in my
stomach I always felt when I met new people or faced new situation was
no longer there. With calmness came the ability to face dilemmas,
pinpoint and resolve contradictions in my thinking, and express ideas,
which were not popular. To my surprise, I also began to write my first
book - something I had wanted to do all my life but could never find the
incentive.
What Dreams May Come
By the time I reached sixty years of age, I had achieved my goals. I
lived a quiet life in a small community in northern California that
provided me with a modest living and the comfort of a mild climate.
Owen and Nina had passed away long ago and the house our family grew
up in passed on to a different family. I had nothing left of the past but
memories and scattered relatives I had lost touch with.
Because of my drug experiments in the 70's, I had committed enough
felonies to qualify for a long stint in federal prison. Since the DEA and
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the local law enforcement never caught me, I became, instead, a
productive member of society.
In my spare time, I pick up trash and remove graffiti in the town
where I live. It takes away my guilt for not participating in town politics.
The best graffiti remover is Titan Oil Flow purchased from a
janitorial supply store.
After a lifetime of searching for THE ANSWER, I have come to
realize that the mystery of being has no answers that will satisfy the
search. Our roots lead back to nothingness - which means I cannot
know the mystery and be the mystery at the same time. What we have
done is create an illusion of separation through the contraction and
expansion of energy. By forming subject/object relationships, we have
spawned all kinds of knowledge about ourselves but the mystery remains
– beyond thought and imagination.
I now think of my life as a dream that arises out of nothingness and
fades back into nothingness - only to reappear each time as a brand new
experience. Already I have forgotten most of my life and will forget the
rest when I die. The next time I appear I will look around and wonder
who am I and what is this place? - and once again I will begin to search
for answers.
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Part Two
God is my Higher Self
Religion and Common Sense
An Inquiry into Belief Systems that Defy Logic
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Make Me Believe
My birth and training began within the Catholic religion, which
taught me to pretend to be a Catholic, but did not make me a true
Catholic. As a child, I did not accept or reject religion; instead, I obeyed
my mother, a woman of great faith who made certain that I adopted her
beliefs.
When I left home at age 20 and I began to think my own thoughts, I
realized I had to start over and build a belief system I could live with.
Who Creates God.
Conservative Christians believe the Bible is the Word of God but I
believe the Bible is a record of human thought and experience. The
men and women who wrote these accounts did so at a time when
writing was a rare and magical skill and the known world was far
different than it is today. If you do not understand this, then the
description of God is real and you must believe it or else.
Today, reading and writing is a common activity but many of us still
cannot tell the difference between fact and fiction.
Who Controls God
Devout Catholics believe that God's representative, the Pope, is
infallible - meaning he cannot make a mistake in matters of religious
doctrine. Those who doubt this claim know that human beings cannot
avoid making mistakes. The world around us is in a constant state of flux
which no Pope or world leader can understand or control. The purpose of
the infallibility doctrine was to end religious arguments over who
controls God.
Whoever controls God controls people. In religious circles, the
struggle over who gives orders and who takes orders is settled by who
controls God. This problem is resolved to a degree by the introduction of
children to the description of God before reason takes control of the
thought process. Children must believe that God is a powerful, invisible
presence that sees everything and knows everything. Reason argues
against the existence of a God that cannot be seen; but the description
can be used to establish control, especially when it is fully supported by
the adults.
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As time passes, however, and the seven year old becomes an adult,
he or she may have already begun to question this description. Those
who rely heavily on logic and reason in their decision-making notice a
troubling conflict between blind faith and common sense. The fearful,
obedient ones who value security and reward above all else will cling to
their childhood training; but the others – the risk takers – will choose to
leave religion behind and face the unknown - alone.
Common Sense v. Faith.
It is impossible to obey the Two Great Commandments, which
state, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and thy
whole soul and thy whole mind and thy whole strength; and thy neighbor
as thyself."
This commandment is a contradiction because it is impossible to
command love. Love can only arise of its own accord. If it is difficult to
love a real person, how can I love a description in a book? On the other
hand, if I replace the word "God" with the word "Nature" it becomes
easy.
The second half of this commandment repeats the same nonsense. I
cannot obey an order from Jesus to love my neighbor. I can only respect
my neighbor and make friends if I choose to - and let it go at that.
Bible and Catechism Classes never address the mystery of being.
The repetitive drone of stories, psalms, and parables at these classes are
like painted cakes at a birthday party. The cakes appear real but they are
fakes and do not satisfy the quest for real answers. Stories of selfrealization are curiously absent from the Bible; instead, Bible stories tell
you to obey God – which is impossible - or face eternal damnation.
The First Law of Thermodynamics states that energy cannot be
created or destroyed; it can only change from one form into another. This
is actually a good description of God - eternal, indestructible, present
everywhere, and therefore knowing all things – a description of the
universe Itself. The constant change from one form into another is the
play between "visible" matter and "invisible" energy. Matter and energy
are different degrees of density and speed – the only difference between
God and Man.
Jesus
With all due respect for the followers of Jesus, I have several
questions concerning God's only Son, and his miracles. Notice that all
the people Jesus cured died afterwards, including Lazarus. According to
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the narrative, Jesus brought Lazarus back to life from death and decay
through the power of God. Lazarus continued to age after his
resurrection, and eventually died. The miracle lasted but a short time.
This makes me wonder about Jesus coming back from the dead. Was
Jesus, in fact, really dead? If the Roman soldiers had dismembered
Jesus' body, would he have reassembled himself?
I have also wondered about the interpretation the followers of Jesus
added to the Crucifixion. The popular notion is that Jesus died because of
our sins. It is just as likely that Jesus was a political threat to the
authorities because of his popularity with the people. He publicly
criticized the high priests and government officials. His teachings
aroused the spirit of rebellion among Jews eager to break free from
Rome and become an independent Jewish State. Many hoped Jesus was
the Messiah that would become their new king. This revolutionary talk
forced the local authorities to take action against Jesus to prevent a
Jewish uprising. If this happened, it would force the Governor to send in
the Roman Army, which could lead to a massacre.
In those days, crucifixion was a common form of punishment for
enemies of the State. The Romans routinely crucified those who broke
the law or angered those in power, and crowds of people gathered to
watch the bloody event. The Roman formed mobile crucifixion teams to
carry out the gruesome task. Somehow, the followers of Jesus concluded
that crucifixion is the way to salvation. In some cases, religious
extremists endure their own Crucifixion on Good Friday with real nails
and live participants – fortunately not to the point of death.
This is an important indicator that some of us suffer from faulty
reasoning. If Jesus finished his job long ago and now sits at the right
hand of God, why do Catholic parents force their children to participate
in the Way of the Cross on Good Friday afternoon? Was the torture and
horrible death of Jesus their fault? No - because none of us existed at that
time.
It makes no sense to torture oneself for no reason.
Today we continue to collect and pray to statues and pictures of
Jesus to console us. Artists depict Jesus as a six-foot tall, young, white
American male with long brown hair parted in the middle, and a beard.
We also have pictures of the baby Jesus, the child Jesus, the teenage
Jesus, the adult Jesus, the crucified Jesus, the dead Jesus and the
resurrected Jesus. Despite all these Jesus', no one really knows what
Jesus looked like.
As a child, I often prayed to both Jesus and God until I finally
stopped one day and realized I was praying to myself. I concluded that if
anyone was listening - He, She or It already knew everything and did
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not need me to provide information or confess wrongdoing. Furthermore,
if I wanted something done, I had to do it myself.
For the most part, the teachings and sayings of Jesus offer wisdom
that lies outside the common stream of human thought. Most of it is
common sense that any intelligent person who takes the time to observe
and reflect could figure out.
Even so, here are a few quotes attributed to Jesus that deserve
inspection.
"If thy right eye offends thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee:
for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish
and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell; and if thy right
hand offend thee, cut it off…"
I presume that Jesus did not expect people to mutilate their own
bodies if it offended them but that is what he says here.
"But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall
smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also."
Think of how quickly devout Christians would have perished under
the Nazis had they taken these instruction seriously. Does Jesus really
mean this? Resist not evil?
"Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what ye
shall eat, what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall
put on."
This is another meaningless string of words. I have no idea what this
means. If I tried to do this, I would quickly become a homeless derelict,
wandering the streets in rags or better yet, dead.
"He that is not with me is against me. And whosoever speaketh a
word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever
speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him neither
in this world, neither in the world to come."
I have never met the Son of Man or the Holy Ghost. I have never
seen either of them so I cannot very well speak against them.
"Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account
thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be
justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned."
When I read this, I think of all the careless and dumb remarks I have
uttered in my life and did not really mean. Too late - my words have
already condemned me in the Day of Judgment.
What does it mean to be condemned by my own words, and what
happened to freedom of speech and forgiveness?
Here is a popular quote to which Christians pay no attention.
"The Kingdom of Heaven is within you."
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The Kingdom of Heaven is not a kingdom. It is a state of happiness
within yourself.
The Second Coming of Jesus
Ever since the reported death and resurrection of Jesus Christ 2000
years ago, Christians have waited for Jesus to return one day to collect
the chosen few. This belief contradicts the promise that Jesus made to his
disciples: "I am with you always, even to the end of the world".
How can Jesus return if he never left?
Jesus is supposed come back and rescue the faithful from a life of
suffering but how would anyone recognize him if no one knows what he
looks like? He would have to appear in the sky, riding on a cloud of light
so we would know for sure it was He.
These "second coming" groups that form often break up and the
leaders commit suicide after the deadline passes and Jesus fails to appear.
However, new groups always reform to carry on the vigil.
Those who seek eternal life and salvation after death should ask;
what part of you survives death? I always thought death collapsed the
body, the ego and the world, while God remained constant.
What Happened Once Can Happen Again.
In Catholic Theology, the story of creation begins with the
presumption of a Creator God or a Spirit since we cannot picture
nothingness. God is a mighty King who rules over us from the Kingdom
of Heaven, which he populated with angels whose sole purpose was to
serve Him. At some point in this perfect process, God's favorite angel,
Lucifer, became dissatisfied in his role as a servant. Lucifer persuaded
some of the other angels to join him to overthrow God. According to the
story, the good angels defeated Lucifer and drove him and his followers
into Hell, which is the opposite of Heaven.
Sadly, this story contains gross inconsistencies that make it not
believable.
Since God is all-powerful, why does He need angels to serve Him?
Why can't He do everything by Himself?
If God knows everything, why not Lucifer's rebellious thoughts? If
the Kingdom of Heaven is a place of perfect happiness, why rebel?
Perhaps Heaven is not the perfect place after all. Perhaps trouble can
erupt in Heaven like anywhere else. Perhaps Heaven is a creation of our
own desires.
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The Origin of Humanity
After God confined Satan and his fellow conspirators to the fires of
Hell, he decided to start a new project.
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And God said let us make man in our image, after our likeness."
The word "us" implies that God has become a multiple personality.
Why this happened remains a mystery but it could have led to the arising
of both monotheism and polytheism. Regardless, this multiple
personality will now create Adam and Eve, the first humans.
"And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living
soul. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and
he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh... and the
rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman,
and brought her unto the man."
"And on the seventh day God ended his work… and he
rested…"
These words do not qualify as an explanation of how the universe
and humanity came to exist. It might satisfy a three-year-old but not an
adult with a college education. The seven days are human measurements
of time, which does not apply to God because God lives in eternity. The
seven days of creation followed by a rest period says that God became
tired.
As the story continues, God creates the Garden of Paradise and the
first humans, Adam and Eve. Apparently, there is nothing much for them
to do except wander around and enjoy the beauty and perfection of the
Garden. The only restriction God requires of them is to stay away from
the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. I long, however, before
Lucifer, now called Satan, appears beside the tree in the form of a
beautiful serpent to persuade Eve to have a taste of one of the apples. At
first, she refuses but then she changes her mind as Satan pours on the
charm and promises she will become as wise and powerful as God. The
trick works and Eve gives in to her desire for Godlike power and
knowledge. Later, she convinces Adam to join her. The consequence of
their disobedience is a loss of innocence. They experience shame when
they discover they are naked, guilt over their disobedience and then fear
of God's punishment.
The way I see it, God, in His infinite wisdom and knowledge,
planted the tree in plain site knowing that Adam and Eve would
eventually sample the fruit when they grew bored with their life of
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perfection. In fact, God made certain this would happen when He turned
Satan loose in the garden.
Since God knows everything, He knew perfectly well what would
happen when these three got together. He did not need to put them
through a test to find out. With almighty God there are no mistakes!
Cain and Abel
After God forced Adam and Eve out of Paradise, they began a new
life as mortals. Their first two children, Cain and Abel, became a farmer
and a herdsman. Apparently, God preferred slaughtered sheep to
vegetables and favored Abel over Cain. This seemed unfair to Cain who
decided to get even by killing his brother. Unfortunately, God was not
everywhere when this altercation took place and therefore, He did not
prevent it from happening. Later, when God discovers what happened
He becomes upset, places a mark on Cain and banishes him to the land of
Nod where he meets his wife and starts a family?
Perhaps it is just me but I thought Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel
were the only humans on the planet when the murder took place.
Noah and the Flood
"And it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth
and it grieved Him at his heart. And the Lord said I will destroy man
whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man and beast;
and the creeping thing and the fowls of the air; for it repented me
that I have made them."
According to the story, Genesis is God's second mistake. First the
angels rebelled and now this. In God's own words, God is not perfect; He
makes mistakes, He suffers from his mistakes, and He becomes angry
and destructive over His mistakes. God behaves like his creations.
God now decides to destroy all life on the planet except for a man
named Noah and his family who he instructs to build a huge craft called
the Ark. God's instructs Noah that …" every living thing of all flesh,
two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, and keep them alive
with thee. Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by seven, the
male and female; and of the beast that are not clean by two, the male
and the female."
God's new plan is to re-seed the earth with a mated pair of every
living thing by storing them aboard the Ark while He flooded the entire
earth with water. Common sense argues that Noah and his family cannot
build a ship large enough to hold a mated pair of every living thing,
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much less keep them alive for forty days without them eating one
another. On the other hand, maybe Noah's world was a small area that
flooded.
The Tower of Babel
"and the whole earth was of one language and of one speech.
And they said, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may
reach unto heaven… and the Lord came down to see the city and the
tower… and the Lord said… go to, let us go down, and there
confound their language, that they may not understand one
another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence
upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city."
The author of this story failed to explain why we have a variety of
languages. The plot is about human beings who are trying to reach
Heaven by building a tower. The fact that Heaven was not "up there"
made no difference or that mountains already rose higher into the sky
than any tower.
This time God "up" in Heaven has to come "down" to find out what
these arrogant humans are up to this time. Instead of laughing when he
sees their folly, he becomes angry, scatters them and alters their
language. This stops them from building any more towers.
The Bible Bangers
I am beginning to believe that genetic engineering plays a major role
in how people think and act. Some of us simply cannot follow a single
thought to its logical conclusion and must accept information based on
blind faith. In school, I memorized a great deal of information before I
began to understanding its meaning.
The rebirth of the Christian Right is a reaction to the glut of drugs,
sex and rock and roll of the 60's. Gurus, transcendental meditation, and
books crammed with wisdom from the East terrified and infuriated
traditional Christians.
They began to fight back by speaking in tongues, practicing faith
healing and swooning in the spirit. They broadcast bible sermons and
promised heavenly rewards in exchange for donations. Men and women
put on ministers robes, stood before television cameras and preached the
Gospel to a worldwide audience.
At first, I was curious about this new wave of Christian
Fundamentalists until the police arrested a few of them for engaging in
tax evasion, misappropriation of funds, statutory rape, and prostitution.
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This bad behavior of the "inner circle" punched a small hole in this
televised contest of one-upmanship.
Later, the Catholic Clergy took their turn in the media with their
admissions of molestations and the cover-ups that followed.
It seemed to me that the men and women who become sales reps for
The Boss, all follow the same rules. They receive their authority to
preach from other preachers. They claim that God speaks to them,
usually in private. They attack other religions they find threatening, and
they promise salvation to their most generous donors. The Church tried
this in the past with the sale of indulgences, which led to the Protestant
Revolution. The con game continues because millions of desperate,
frightened individuals fail to educate themselves and believe that anyone
who promises them what they want to hear must be telling the truth.
Religion and Government
Over the last twenty years, a groundswell of Christian activism has
moved traditional Christian values of God, country and family values to
the top of the political agenda. Politicians win elections by promising to
get tough on drugs, pornography, homosexuality, abortion, gay marriage,
alternative lifestyles and non-Christian religions.
Evangelical ministers can easily win over their audiences with
sermons that shock and frighten the ignorant. Aroused congregations will
eagerly donate money and volunteer their services to return America to
God. The goal is to take control of the government by electing
candidates that represent Christian values. One way to do this is by
forcing public schools to include Creationism in their science courses.
The first step is to change the word "Creationism" to "Intelligent
Design."
Intelligent Design says, "Certain features of the universe and of
living things are best explained by an "intelligent cause", not an
"undirected process" such as natural selection." Simply stated, God is a
cause, not a process. The proponents of the split between a Creator God
and His creation assert that this cause is the biblical God in Genesis.
Intelligent Design lost its bid to enter public high school science
courses in the 1990 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case when
U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III ruled that intelligent design is not
science and "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist antecedents."
Right wing Christian Conservatives appear blind to the separation of
church and state written into the Constitution. The founding fathers made
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it clear that tax-supported public schools cannot be used to teach
religious doctrine. Privately funded churches and religious schools are
already tax exempt and perfectly free to carry on these activities with
their own money.
Religious wars over who controls God have caused untold human
suffering throughout history. During the Catholic Inquisition, and the
Star Chamber, the Church would have burned Darwin at the stake for
publishing his observations in the Galapagos Islands and Galileo paid a
heavy price for his work with the telescope. Today because of the
Constitution, fundamentalists and evolutionists can argue through books,
newspapers, and the media without one side or the other going to prison
or worse.
.
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Seventeen Religions to Choose From
When I was a child, my teachers told me that my religion,
Catholicism, was true, and all the other religions were false. My job was
to defend and promote Catholicism so I could please God and go to
Heaven after I died. The nuns, the priests, and my mother, Nina, made it
quite clear that if I lost my faith, I would lose my immortal soul and end
up in hell. Even though I liked people of other faiths, I felt sorry for them
because they could not go to Heaven like me.
As the years passed, my friendships with people of other faiths
outweighed my fear of losing my immortal soul and I began to question
my so-called beliefs. What I discovered transformed me from a believer
into a religious investigator.
Did you know that we have created at least seventeen major religions
and hundreds of minor ones over the course of history? Some of us are
born into these isolated groups while others search for one that satisfies
personal needs and desires. In my case, I chose birth into a Catholic
family but after two decades of internal conflicts, I began to question its
usefulness in my adult life.
By age twenty, I was ready to test my faith by letting it go. If I truly
needed Catholicism, I reasoned, it would return to me of its own accord.
As it turned out, it never did come back. The time I spent attending
Mass, praying to God, reading the Bible, thinking about Jesus, salvation
and sin became free time I devoted to other activities.
According to the free online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, the most
popular religion on this planet is Christianity - a system of belief based
on the miracles and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. The Christian
religion has 2.1 billion followers worldwide.
The next largest collector of human souls is Islam, which attracts 1.5
billion followers and is based on the teachings of the Arab Prophet,
Muhammad ibn Abd Allah. According to the article, Muslims believe
that Muhammed is the restorer of the original, uncorrupted,
monotheistic faith of Adam and Abraham, and the last messenger and
Prophet of God.
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Knowing and Not-knowing
Typically, religions promote a belief in a higher power, a hierarchy
of organized worship of that higher power, and a set of myths or sacred
truths about that power; furthermore:
1. It must be socially progressive. Its leaders must create order and
provide opportunities for wealth, power and freedom for its followers.
2. It must satisfy the human need for a higher transcendental truth.
This would include a belief in a supreme, parental authority that rewards
good and punishes evil.
3. It must appear true to its followers - and all other religions must
appear false or simply misguided.
The first requirement addresses our needs as the body. The second
addresses our needs as bodiless spirits. The third creates a protective
shield around each individual and binds the membership together into a
single unit.
For the fearful, mainstream religion offers the illusion of security
and comfort. For the risk takers, it is an obstacle.
The first indicator of a break with the religious universe is
dissatisfaction.
English philosopher, David Hume argues that "meaningful
statements about the universe are always qualified by some degree of
doubt." In other words, doubt is good for growth. So why would an
honest religious person feel threatened by doubt?
Atheism - A Leap of Faith
Prior to the eighteenth century, most people accepted the existence
of God with such confidence that the very idea that anyone might not
believe in God was unthinkable. The notion that people were born
believers was a common assumption. Believers knew that the small
number of known atheists were simply in denial of the truth - that under
conditions of extreme fear or imminent death, atheists would quickly
return to their religious roots.
Loosely defined, atheism is the absence of belief in external gods,
deities, or supernatural phenomenon. This is very similar to Zen, which
attributes all phenomena, high or low, to the human nervous system. The
nervous system converts incoming raw, formless energy into sensory
data that we experience as the body and the world around us. Without
that recognition, the myth of the external Male Creator God becomes
necessary.
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For an atheist, the worship of "a" God or gods in any form - is
idolatry. One could say that atheism is either the purest form of selfrealization or a virulent case of egotism. The difference lies in the
recognition of "others" as "self " and "self" as "others." In the case of
egotism, the "others" are of little or no consequence compared to one's
own self-importance. In the case of God-realization, everyone and
everything is "me".
The One and the Many
If God is not knowable then those who claim to "know God" may
be further from the truth than those who admit they do not know. Little
children have this quality of innocence or lack of knowledge, which is
why we find them so attractive.
Over the millenium, our species has written thousands of volumes
that described in detail the differences between those who are
enlightened and those who are merely self-obsessed. The difference is,
enlightened people see God everywhere and the self-obsessed see God
only in themselves or not at all. Some of us believe the knowledge we
collect about God puts us closer to the Divine, while others feel that not
knowing God is the true path.
The first step in God-realization is the discovery that I am my
body. We forgot this fact when we replaced the word "body" with the
word "I". Eventually, the word "I" came to mean a point of awareness
inside the body and ultimately, replaced the body as the true self.
When this false identity became the center of consciousness, it also
became the target of religious doctrine. A religious crisis is a conflict
between the body and the phantom "I" which is merely a sensation inside
the body – usually behind the eyes. We should also include the "soul"
and the "spirit" in this riddle to give it more complexity.
Once I choose to play this "I"dentity game I can create the illusion of
multiple personalities. In Psychiatry, a client with three personalities is
an anomaly. In Christianity, the Three Person-alities in one God is a
Divine Mystery.
Enlightenment
Enlightenment is the recognition of one's true condition – an infinite
ocean of energy that expands and contracts upon Itself to create and
dissolve all things. Everything I see is energy in a contracted, bound,
condensed, form. The bonding of light particles to form larger particles
and ultimately living cells is the beginning of the embryonic process that
produces a human being.
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The human body is a mass of particles bonded together to form cells,
tissues, organs and neural circuits that grow and move within a boundless
energy field. This energy flows through all living things, feeds the cells,
and collects inside the mitochondria of each cell. When I weaken myself
with an unhealthy lifestyle, I obstruct the flow of energy and become
weak, sick, or depressed. Extreme abuse or repeated abuse ultimately
precipitates the collapse of the whole body.
When death occurs, the energy expands into space and I cease to
exist as a body. Picture a whirlpool that unravels in a stream.
The Dream Paradigm
Enlightenment is understanding; and yet understanding makes no
difference. After enlightenment, I still have to get up in the morning and
begin my day. I still have to watch what I eat, exercise daily, and be in
bed by 11 p.m. One day I will feel very tired as the current of energy
ceases to flow through me and I will die, just as the great spiritual heroes
and rulers have died before me. Spiritual life protects no one from
sickness, old age and death.
Consider the possibility that life is leading nowhere and that all our
efforts to achieve something will add up to nothing. Under these
conditions, is it still possible to act as if our actions mattered?
Consider the dream paradigm. A paradigm is a model that makes
sense of something that is too complex to describe in words. The only
way I can make sense of my life is to call it a dream. The dreams that I
experience at night are the same as my waking life. I take them for real
while asleep and only realize they are dreams when I awaken.
From the viewpoint of the dreamer, there is no necessity to
dreaming. It is simply an expression of creative energy with no purpose
beyond my own desires. Everything I know or have experienced
throughout my lifetime is arising within this dream.
The dream paradigm goes against the basic premise of
institutionalized religion, public education, and psychiatry and is
therefore dangerous. It raises questions about law and order, motivation
and morality. It also demands responsibility that goes beyond childish
obedience to a set of rules. Even so, believing that life is a dream is no
more absurd than believing in the biblical God. Both are faith-based and
cannot be proven or disproven with words.
Christianity describes the human species as puppets under the
control of a puppeteer. The puppet master is an all-powerful God but we
like to pretend we are independent and have free will. In Zen Buddhism
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– it is different. Now I am the puppet master pulling my own strings but
I do not know how I do it.
What would happen if large numbers of people began to lose selfimportance and redefined life as a dream? Would this cause chaos?
Would we begin to act in a violent and destructive manner if we knew
we were not going anywhere?
The answer is simple. We would have to create a purpose to justify
our existence – something we have already done.
The Proper Use of Sexual Energy
Most religions view sexual pleasure in terms of marriage and
procreation. Out of curiosity, I researched this issue and found out that
Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, and Neopaganism all
have different opinions on how to manage sexual energy. The opinions
range from restriction within monogamous marriages for the sole
purpose of creating children, to the free enjoyment of sexual pleasure as
a health benefit. This broad range of opinions makes me wonder if all
laws are simply arguments and agreements. If so, then personal
management of one's own bodily functions is a private matter.
I have explored the limits of pleasure throughout my life. As a
teenager, I sought relief from stress through chronic masturbation
followed by guilt and confession. I did not stop because the church
labeled it a sin; I stopped because I discovered the short-term pleasure I
experienced began to drain me of my vital energy and led to depression
and irritability. To combat this I decided to try total abstinence to see
what would happen. After abstaining for six months, the buildup of
energy created so much pressure inside my head, I could not think
straight. Eventually, I gave in and settled for moderation. I allowed the
energy to accumulate inside me but not to the point of discomfort.
Why didn't the Church authorities teach me to practice moderation
instead of demanding total abstinence? Why a strategy of guilt and fear?
Why We Exist
There are many interesting stories to explain our existence. The
Christian version says that long ago Adam and Eve, our ancestors made a
bad decision, so we, their descendants, must suffer the consequences of
their actions. Fortunately, there are other explanations that make more
sense. Carlos Castaneda and Ram Dass say we are here for our own
entertainment. George Carlin says our purpose is to create plastic. Adi
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Da (formerly Da Freejohn, Franklin Jones, etc.) says we became solid to
have something to look at.
I say we became bored with nothingness so we decided to launch
the Genesis Project. The project started with a bang and slowly grew into
huge drama of enormous complexity. We have evolved into a world of
countless life forms that interact with one another. Our job at the lower
levels is to fight over food, money and sex. At the higher levels, we
become interested in power, wisdom, and enlightenment.
In the end, it does not matter who wins and who loses because we
all live short, fictional, lives. What matters is that we put on a memorable
performance. I hope I am wrong but the final step in this Divine Plan
may be to blow the whole thing up and then start over. Nobody knows
for sure.
It is difficult to imagine myself living inside a field of energy
particles because 99% of what I see is empty space. The only part I can
see through my eyes is the slow-moving, dense portion, called matter. I
cannot see particles moving at light speed. What I see instead, is a blur.
If my body began to increase its vibration rate, both my body and the
surrounding world would become less solid. If this process continued, I
would soon dissolve into a mass of sparkling light particles. At
maximum velocity, my body and the around me would disappear into
nothingness - which is where it all began.
No Body Equals No Experience
Remember the rhetorical question, "if a tree falls in the forest and
there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?" In other words,
does the world exist on its own, independent of my senses?
I happened to be one of those people who like to argue against
popular beliefs. I say the tree falling in the forest cannot make a sound
unless there is someone or something present to experience the vibration.
It is my own nervous system that creates the experience.
The Center of the Universe
Astronomers are now searching for the Center of the Universe - the
point of origin from which the universe grew to its present size. More
than likely, it will turn out to be a black hole that will slowly draw the
universe back inside itself - only to explode once more.
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The Importance of Religious Rituals
Religious rituals arise out of human need. The no meat on Friday
rule for Catholics probably began as a protection against spoiled meat.
"Unclean" pork infected with trichinosis was a threat until people learned
to cook the meat thoroughly to kill the worms and the eggs. Meat was
dried to prevent bacterial rotting in the absence of refrigeration. The
Buddhist practice of avoiding meat is simply a way to ease the burden on
the digestive system and to respect the rudimentary consciousness of
other organisms that have a right to life.
Religious rituals are repeated motions, words or songs. We use them
to bolster our fragile egos and to request favors from our Higher Self
(God). The most fragile egos are often the most devout because ego is
fear. Behind many religious rituals lies the fear of the unknown, the
desire for power and the hope for a reward.
Rituals create the illusion of security and for many people the
weekly or daily service and the worship of holy objects allows the ego
(the sensation of individual existence) to survive and carry on.
Religion and Entheogens
Entheogens are chemical compounds found in plants that change our
view of the world. They are generally not addictive and often trigger
profound changes in thinking and behavior. Traditionally, shamans used
entheogens to induce visions in themselves and in their clients - to
reaffirm the presence of "God within".
For the explorers and adventurers, the repeated rituals and
exaggerated claims of institutionalized religion only lead to boredom and
disappointment. The endless prayers, sermons, baptisms, Bible classes
and worship of long ago people doesn't do anything. Life remains the
same the same whether you participate or not. The mystery of God, the
self and the world always remains beyond the reach of science and
religion. At this point, a taste of the forbidden fruit offers a brief
venture into the unknown. According to millions of people, peyote,
magic mushrooms and LSD provides an experience that goes far beyond
anything offered by the Church.
Despite their differences, Entheogens and religion share a common
goal - to awake the individual to the presence of God. For many people, a
compelling religious experience can change forever, a person's beliefs.
Of course, you can alter reality by drinking alcohol but there is no
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comparison between getting intoxicated on Colt 45 and seeing God. In
fact, many people give up drinking alcohol after such an experience.
For centuries, religious authorities have denounced entheogenic
experiences as dangerous, drug induced-hallucinations. Christian
scholars argue that prayer and the Eucharist in the Mass is the correct
way taught by Jesus to receive God. As a former Catholic and a
participant in the Sacrament of Holy Communion for twenty years, I can
assure you there is no comparison. Swallowing a wafer of white flour
and pretending it is the Body of Jesus is what we do but it doesn't
demolish the ego.
The strongest argument against Entheogens is the casual use by
people who are ill equipped to handle the dramatic changes in
perception. Thanks to public education, most of us have no idea of the
nature of perception. When it begins to change, it can shock the ego into
a violent contraction (an anxiety attack). In my case, it allowed me to see
that I am creating our own reality. At the same time, I did not know
how I did this or how to control it.
The use of Entheogens is risky for people who are having difficulty
adapting to the human form. The casual and irresponsible use of peyote,
mushrooms and LSD in combinations with other substances like alcohol
has triggered deaths and injuries - hence the laws against them. Recently
the Justice Minister of Amsterdam, a city well known for its liberal drug
policy called for an end to the sale of fresh magic mushrooms after
reports of over one hundred deaths (mostly British tourists). The
hallucinogenic salvia divinorum plant is also facing banishment because
of its emerging popularity. LSD, Peyote and Magic Mushrooms already
reside in Schedule 1 next to heroin.
Given the government's hostility toward altered states, we can
expect Congress, the Justice Department and their enforcers, the DEA, to
continue to add more plants and compounds to the long list of forbidden
substances as soon as they become popular.
The Prohibition of Entheogens
Nearly all governments on this planet have outlawed Entheogens,
and for a good reason. They are dangerous and can cause injury or death
if used in an irresponsible manner. In pre-Columbian Mexico and South
America, Christian and Islamic missionaries believed peyote and
hallucinogenic mushrooms contained devils that possessed its users.
When Church and Government officials conquered native cultures, they
outlawed them and punished those who used them – sometimes with
torture and death.
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Why I Believe that Humanity Invented God
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
God is a male and Nature is a female.
He never laughs.
His projects fail.
He becomes angry and depressed.
He is a multiple personality.
He orders us to love Him and threatens eternal damnation if
we do not.
The safest course is to treat the description of God as a human
invention. If you take the description too seriously you may begin to
exhibit signs of schizophrenia – a split personality. This is what
happened to me.
Why Did I Need to Believe in God?
1. To gain control of my world.
2. To ease the frustration of not knowing who I am.
3. To cope with fear.
The Cure
1. Stop trying to control the world around me.
2. Accept not-knowing who I am.
3. Face my fears.
The Results
1. The world goes on without me.
2. I become a mystery.
3. My fear changes to personal power.
A species that refuses to accept responsibility for its own actions
but chooses instead to worship and obey ghosts that arise from within
will find no peace.
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Part Three
Nanny Says No
Essays and Opinions
On U.S. Drug Policy
Dedicated to the non-violent victims of U.S. drug laws.
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From Regulation to Interdiction
In the latter half of the nineteenth century, American druggists sold a
variety of patent medicines over-the-counter both with and without a
doctor's prescription. Many of these products contained heavy doses of
opiates, cocaine, and cannabis extract. At that time, the medical
community did not know the risks in taking these medicines, nor did they
have access to less potent painkillers, such as aspirin.
Concerned over the increased numbers of addicts to morphine,
Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 to combat the
patent medicine industry. The new law required labels on all habitforming medicines. These new "poison laws" listed the ingredients and
warned the consumer of the danger of overdose and addiction.
Before 1914, twenty-nine states had passed these non-punitive
measures to "regulate" the use of narcotics.
In 1914, the Harrison Narcotics Act became the first "punitive"
measure levied by the Federal Government. The new law punished
anyone, including physicians, who dealt, sold, and gave away opiates,
cocaine, or their derivatives without a written record, a license, and
payment of an occupational tax. The new legislation responded to an
increased concern that physicians and druggists dispensed addictive
drugs too freely, which led to more addiction. The Supreme Court
supported the new criminal law and ruled that prevention of withdrawal
from an addictive drug was no longer a legitimate reason for medical
treatment.
The Harrison Act shut off the legal supply and forced addicts to rely
on street dealers. As the crackdown continued, the inflated prices of the
illegal market often drove addicts into larceny and prostitution to acquire
enough money to afford the drug. This led to an increase in crime and
fostered the belief in the public mind that drug addiction - not
prohibition - led to crime and depravity. The addict was now labeled a
criminal and dope fiend.
By 1923, the new punitive laws had forced all drug clinics, to shut
down. The compassionate medical model of maintenance, counseling
and gradual reduction shifted to a zero tolerance crusade against illegal
drug users.
Prohibitionists did not attack drug users directly; instead, they used
an occupational tax law to arrest anyone for tax evasion who sold or
gave away narcotics without a license. By using the tax angle, the
Treasury became the drug enforcement branch of the Government. In
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1920, the Narcotic Division of the Prohibition Unit of the Internal
Revenue Service came into existence.
The narcotic tax laws highlighted the conflict between "serve and
protect" the public and Jefferson's inalienable right of the individual to
"life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Under the constant pressure
from prohibitionist groups, Federal lawmakers supported public welfare
over personal freedom and privacy.
In 1920, Congress banned the manufacture and sale of the demon
drug, alcohol in the form of hard liquor. They attacked manufacturers
and venders but not users. The prohibition of alcohol at the Federal level
was a gradual shift in attitude that had its beginnings at the state level
more than eighty years earlier. In 1840, a difference of opinion formed
between the pietistic Protestants who condemned saloons as places of
political corruption and sin, and their opponents, liturgical Protestants
and Catholics who believed the government should not define
morality.
The first successful attempt to get rid of alcohol began when the state
of Maine banned the manufacture and sale of liquor in 1851. After that
first success, the movement slowed until 1880 when members of the
Women's Christian Temperance Union and the Prohibition Party began
to speak out against saloons. Their campaign went national and by 1916,
it led to prohibition in 26 of the 48 states. In 1920, the Anti-Saloon
League pushed Congress to pass the Volstead Act, which made the
manufacture and transport of alcohol, a federal crime. The prohibition of
alcohol at the Federal level overrode control of the drug by the individual
states and placed it in the hands of the Federal Prohibition Bureau. The
Great Experiment met with success in the first few years because it
reduced availability, but it soon spawned a criminal industry, which
replaced government regulation.
As Prohibitionists praised the new Federal law, the urge to drink
alcohol did not go away. Before long, bathtubs, basement stills, supply
networks, and speakeasy bars sprang up to satisfy the nation's thirst. The
small, private stills gave way to large sophisticated operations run by
gangsters and thugs who battled one another for a bigger share of the
profits. Joseph P. Kennedy, the father of the late president, smuggled
alcohol from Canada into the United States and built a sizable fortune
both during and after Prohibition. Bootlegging violence became common
since manufacturers and distributors had no legal right to settle their
differences in court.
Civil disobedience among otherwise law-abiding citizens soon
cogged the courts with prohibition violators. Most of the defendants
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demanded a jury trial of their peers to avoid a judge who was sworn to
uphold federal law.
Throughout Prohibition, distilleries in Mexico and Canada remained
open for business and provided Americans with alcohol to consume or
smuggle back into the United States.
In 1927, in response to the growing crisis, a group of attorneys
formed the VCL (The Voluntary Committee of Lawyers) to study the
damage to society caused by the new zero tolerance policy. They
discovered that economic depression, crime, corruption, and violence
had exhausted Americans and their only relief from the relentless
pressure was the illegal drug, alcohol.
In 1932, the stage was set for the VCL to take action. At that time,
FDR was running for president against Herbert Hoover who adopted his
party's position to continue Prohibition. Early on in the campaign, FDR
realized his support lay with the people, and not with the government. He
made a single speech in which he endorsed repeal. Thanks to this
decision, he captured the election.
After the election, the VCL had a tough job ahead of them because
traditionally, state legislatures ratified constitutional amendments and the
legislators were rural, religious fundamentalists who defended
Prohibition as part of their biblical responsibility before God. The VCL
solved the problem by going around the state legislators and creating
state conventions directly responsible to voters. Candidates for the new
conventions had to declare themselves for or against Prohibition and the
voters could choose the candidates. The newly elected delegates became
the tools to draft the bills to present to Congress.
The VCL lined up expert witnesses to testify against Prohibition in
legislative hearings in all 48 states and answer all legal questions
pertaining to the Constitution.
When Congress reconvened, it responded to the mandate for repeal
and passed it on February 20, 1933. It is said that a national cheer could
be heard at the moment of passage.
After 1933, organized crime lost nearly all of its profits to licensed
liquor stores and breweries. In 1966, Mississippi was the last state to
repeal Prohibition.
The VCL fought the Volstead Act for the following reasons:
• Prohibition violated the basic principles of Law and
Government and encroached upon the powers properly
reserved to the states and the people.
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•
•
•
•
•
•
It created disrespect for law and law enforcement.
It corrupted police and public officials.
It caused injustice in the legal process from overcrowded
jails and courts.
It encouraged improper and illegal acts by police to obtain
evidence.
It infringed on constitutional guarantees against illegal
search and seizure
It wasted taxpayer dollars and destroyed lives.
Alcohol consumption actually increased during Prohibition,
although the depression itself may have been a factor.
*Online Sources: www.vcl.org/Origvellong.htm
www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/history.htm
Save our Children - Protect Our Youth – Stamp out Prohibition
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A Strategy of Lies
Marijuana arrived in America at the turn of the century in the
pockets of Mexican migrant farm workers. At the beginning of the
immigration, Mexicans were welcomed as a source of cheap labor but as
their numbers increased, and the Depression made jobs scarce,
resentment began to flare. Residents began to complain to lawmakers to
do something about the newcomers. In response to these complaints,
states and communities along the Mexican border passed laws against
cannabis and jailed Mexicans who had it in their possession. Before long,
other states took notice and followed suit. Eventually, state officials
began to pressure the Federal Government to enact a nationwide ban.
The Conspiracy Theory
Three Major Players
Andrew Mellon, Henry J. Anslinger, William Randolph Hearst
In 1937, Henry J. Anslinger, a former Assistant U.S. Commissioner
for Prohibition was hand picked to head the new Federal Bureau of
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Narcotics. Harry's first priority was to find ways to expand his
department and acquire funding from Congress.
While Harry struggled to expand his new Bureau, American
newspaper baron, William Randolph Hearst made plans to increase his
fortune in the newspaper business. Hearst had already purchased 800,000
acres of prime forestland in Mexico and invested money in a patented
process for turning wood pulp into paper.
The industrial hemp industry, which was in decline at the time,
would have provided him with four times more pulp per acre than trees,
but the hemp stalks were broken down by hand, a time-consuming and
costly method. When the decorticating machine appeared on the
market, which would speed up the process, it was too late to switch to
hemp. Hearst realized he had to act fast to protect his investment.
While Hearst thought of ways to get rid of hemp, the
Pharmaceutical Industry lobbied Congress to get rid of patent
medicines. Many of these concoctions contained cannabis and opium
extracts.
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The third contender in the loop was the Cotton Industry. Since
hemp fiber makes exceptionally strong clothing, it competed with cotton,
which was softer but less durable.
The fourth contender was the Chemical Industry (Monsanto),
which supplied the fertilizers and pesticides for the cotton industry. If
hemp mechanization succeeded, it could hurt these two industries
because hemp is a hardy weed. It requires little fertilizer, resists insects,
and stops erosion.
The fifth contender that wanted cannabis to go away was the
Alcohol Industry. Beer, wine and liquor had made a comeback after
Prohibition and if customers switched to marijuana, it could hurt
business.
The, sixth contender, DuPont, had made large investments in
petroleum products such as nylon and plastic and wanted no competition
from hemp fiber.
The conspiracy theory states that these six industries had a strong
desire to remove cannabis/hemp/marijuana from the marketplace.
Secretary of the Treasury and financier, Andrew Mellon, himself
profitably tied to these industries had to protect his own interests and
those of his friends. He approached his nephew-in-law, Harry Anslinger,
to persuade him to find a way to stop the decorticator from going into
production. He knew the key to the problem was to associate marijuana
with hemp since the two plants were identical in appearance.
At first, Harry had little interest in Mellon's request to tackle the
cannabis plant. His satisfaction came from narcotic and alcohol busts and
the pursuit of violent criminals. However, after the repeal of the Volstead
Act, many former prohibition agents had transferred to his department
and he needed to put them to work to justify their paychecks. Perhaps
this was the way to do it.
When Harry began his investigation, what he found was a task far
beyond the resources of his small bureau. He discovered the hemp plant
was a weed that grew everywhere. It was impossible to wipe out a plant,
which farmers had grown since 1619 for its fiber and seed. He also
discovered cannabis came in two versions - industrial hemp and cannabis
sativa/indica. An extract from the medicinal strain, was a common
ingredient in medicines sold in drug stores and pharmacies across
America for over fifty years.
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With this discovery came the realization that he could never get rid
of hemp with an honest approach. The solution was to launch a campaign
of fear and misinformation - to educate Americans about the dangers of
the "killer weed."
Harry Lies To Congress
On a hot Friday afternoon, August 20, 1937, at 5:45, Speaker of the
House, Sam Rayburn, introduced a bill called The Marihuana Tax Act.
The bill ordered American farmers to obtain a license from the Treasury
Department to grow industrial hemp and made it a Federal crime for
anyone to sell it without paying a 1% tax.
The cannabis/hemp plant came in two versions. The first version
was hemp, an industrial crop with a long history of use, and a very low
or nonexistent THC content. The second version was marijuana, the
same plant with a higher THC content. THC is the ingredient found in
the blossoms and upper leaves of the plant. It has been used throughout
history to intoxicate, and to treat a variety of medical problems.
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Drug Commissioner Harry J. Anslinger, head of the FBN (Federal
Bureau of Narcotics) first introduced the bill into committee hearings for
review. The hearings, which should have gone on for days, lasted two
hours.
Anslinger told the committee, "Marihuana is an addictive drug
which produces in its users, insanity, criminality, and death."
Anslinger and his New Orleans Lawyer who prepared the bill chose the
Mexican word "marihuana," instead of hemp because the committee did
not know that marihuana was the same plant grown by American farmers
for over three hundred years and prescribed by doctors as a medicine.
The first testimony came from a pharmacologist who had injected
himself and 300 dogs with what he called the "active ingredient" in
marihuana. Two of the dogs died from the injection of the substance into
their brains. The testimony raised eyebrows because the active
ingredient, THC would not undergo extraction until years later, in
Holland.
After the pharmacologist completed his testimony, Dr. William C.
Woodward, a lawyer and chief counsel for the American Medical
Association testified, "The American Medical Association knows of
no evidence that marijuana is a dangerous drug."
This statement prompted one of the committee members to remark,
"Doctor, if you cannot say something good about what we are trying to
do here, why don't you go home?"
Another member added, "Doctor, if you haven't got something better
to say than that, we are sick of hearing you."
These words reveal a pre-existing hostility between the AMA and
Roosevelt's New Deal Democrats who dominated the committee. From
1932 through 1937, the AMA had opposed every piece of legislation
proposed by the New Dealers, a conflict that left little friendship between
the two groups.
The bill to outlaw the cannabis plant passed easily in the committee
and moved on to the House of Representatives. It landed on the Speakers
Platform and a limited number of Representatives listened in the stifling
heat to Sam Rayburn call for a debate. The debate consisted of a single
man, a Republican from New York State, who stood and asked what the
bill was about.
Speaker Rayburn replied, "I don't know. It has something to do
with something called marihuana. I think it's a narcotic of some
kind."
The same man asked if the AMA supported the bill.
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In response to the question, a member of the committee that had
criticized Dr.Woodward leaped to his feet and shouted, "Their Doctor
Wentworth came down here. They supported this bill 100 percent!"
This outspoken lie ended the questions, and the vote began. There
was no recorded vote on the bill; instead, legislators walked past points
on the floor to indicate a yes or no vote.
Based on Anslinger's testimony and the false statement from the
hostile committee member, Congress passed the bill with no debate. The
bill was on the floor for a remarkable 92 seconds before it became
Federal Law, which takes precedence over all state laws. This new
prohibition against cannabis happened four years after Congress repealed
alcohol prohibition.
The new law came under the jurisdiction of the Treasury Department
as a tax issue because the Justice Department declined to persecute the
small number of pot smokers.
Farmers who wished to continue growing hemp soon discovered the
Treasury Department would not issue them a license. Every cannabis
plant growing on American soil was now illegal.
The FBN and later its predecessor, the DEA, received the authority
from Congress to arrest over ninety million Americans over the next
seventy years. Twenty million went to prison.
When questioned fourteen years later later, Anslinger admitted he
had no real evidence that marijuana caused murder, insanity, and
death.
The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 was eventually declared
unconstitutional because its promoter used the authority of Congress
to arrest and jail millions of Mexican immigrants, Latinos, Puerto
Ricans, African-Americans, entertainers and jazz musicians, whom
he despised.
When marijuana first crossed the US/Mexican border in the pockets
of Mexican and South American farm workers, medicinal extracts from
the plant had been in common use across America for half a century;
however, thanks to efforts of Anslinger and his agency, cannabis soon
became front-page headlines as a source of crime, violence, and human
degeneracy. More than any other government bureaucrat, Anslinger
successfully transformed cannabis into the "devil's weed" – the forbidden
fruit from which "one puff could lead to addiction, insanity and death."
Anslinger's twenty-five year nationwide crusade of lies and
propaganda was so successful it created a huge bureaucracy of selfserving lawmakers who took turns railing against cannabis. In an
atmosphere of paranoia, they quickly passed a series of punitive laws.
The new laws authorized increasing numbers of police and narcotics
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agents who wielded unprecedented power over frightened, uninformed
citizens. This time, the hard-line fundamentalists made certain this
Prohibition remained in place.
The curious thing about Anslinger was his initial lack of interest in
marijuana. He knew virtually nothing about it to begin with and when he
discovered its widespread use in medicine, and its enormous potential, he
felt the impossibility of the task before him. Discouraged, but not
defeated, Harry gradually overcame his doubts and launched the
extremely effective "Reefer Madness" campaign. He cut out and
collected violent crime stories from the Hearst newspapers - crimes that
often involved the sleep inducing drugs known as "narcotics". The few
that mentioned marijuana caught his attention right away as the possible
link between marijuana, hard drugs and violent crime. As he collected
more and more of these articles, he became convinced that marijuana
caused violent crime. In order to make his theory work, Harry had to
ignore the fact that the vast majority of pot smokers were not
criminals or hard drug users. Instead, they lived ordinary, peaceful,
productive lives.
Anslinger at last decided to write and publish his own crime stories
and quote them in his testimony before Congress. Congress, in turn,
responded to Anslinger's report by giving him more taxpayer money to
expand his bureau. With increased funding, Harry stepped up the pace of
his campaign.
A Tough Job Ahead
A funny thing happened to Harry during the early years of his
campaign. No matter how many letters he wrote, he had difficulty
persuading local police around the country to enforce his new Federal
Tax Law. The small town police had their own priorities and their
limited budgets did not include filling their jails with the small number of
marihuana smokers. Frustrated, Harry decided to create the level of fear
that would force the issue.
The lurid tales of drug addiction, violence, and murder we now call
yellow journalism captured the public's attention and popularized the
new "killer drug", marihuana. A string of low budget films played in the
theatres including, "Reefer Madness," in which the actors smoked joints,
went mad and killed each other. A flood of radio announcements warned
parents against a stranger offering a marihuana cigarette to their child.
Harry personally traveled the country giving talks to parents groups.
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Within a few years, the public knew that one puff from a marijuana
cigarette led to addiction, psychosis, violent crime, moral decay, and
death. Americans who read the sensational stories in the Hearst
publications or listened to the public safety announcements on the radio
had no choice but to believe the former railroad cop.
An anonymous television producer once remarked, "We gear our
programming for the average housewife who has the intelligence of a 5th
grader."
.
The UN Banishes Cannabis from the Earth
Harry's media campaign against cannabis was an enormous success.
The police organized sting operations and herded thousands of African
Americans and Mexicans into jails and prisons. Some of those caught
included celebrities like Louis Armstrong and Robert Mitchum. In the
wake of these successful crackdowns, Harry lobbied for and received
more tax money from Congress to expand his Bureau of Narcotics.
Harry's campaign to destroy the "devil's weed" became a common
news headline and made him a powerful figure in the government. It also
made cannabis the new “forbidden fruit” to millions of curious risk
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takers. The passage of tough new laws increased its value and attracted
more dealers, which triggered the passage of tougher laws. Harry's
campaign to stamp out cannabis became an exciting and dangerous game
between law enforcement, drug dealers, and drug users.
The expanding black market in cannabis attracted poor farmers from
around the world who wanted to grow and sell the weed to rich
American consumers. As the shipments increased, the Government hired
planes and pilots to spray poison on cannabis fields in Mexico,
Columbia, and Afghanistan. Over the next quarter century, Harry's dream
of leading a global war against the most versatile plant in the world
became a reality.
In 1961, Harry achieved his final victory when he pressured United
Nations delegates into signing the Uniform Narcotics Act. The new law
made it illegal for anyone on Earth to grow or possess
cannabis/hemp/marijuana in any form.
After thirty-three years of unrelenting effort, Harry took his place in
history as the first global Drug Czar. The campaign was an official
success on paper but thanks to Harry's own media blitz, the popularity of
cannabis was about to explode.
Online Source: www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/whiteb1.htm
149
Harry Hates Jazz
According to his own files, which Harry personally delivered to
Pennsylvania State University, he kept virtually all jazz and swing
musicians under surveillance and plan to bust them all at once in a single
night. Among the "lowlife" he targeted were the following: Thelonious
Monk, Louis Armstrong, Les Brown, Count Basie, Jeb Callaway, Jimmy
Dorsey, Duke Ellington, Daisy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, and Andre
Kostelanetz. He also kept under surveillance, the NBC Orchestra, the
Milton Berle Show, the Coca-Cola Program, the Jackie Gleason Show,
and the Kate Smith Show!
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The only reason this mass arrest of American entertainers and jazz
musicians did not take place is because Anslinger's superior at the
Treasury Department, Assistant Secretary Foley, disapproved of the idea.
Harry Anslinger, testifying before Congress, 1937
"Reefer makes darkies think they are as good as white men. Most are
Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz
and swing, result from marijuana use and this marijuana causes white
women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any
others.
The primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the
degenerate races."
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The Prohibitionists Viewpoint
Is Legalizing Marijuana a Good Idea?
Posted by CN Staff on January 13, 2008 at
05:12:38 PT
By John Quinn
Source: Burlington Free Press
Vermont -- Before the "Let's decriminalize
marijuana" train leaves the station here in Vermont, I think that
legislators and others should think about the potential impact on
Vermont should we declare marijuana to be legal or
decriminalized.
Advocates for the decriminalization of marijuana have argued
that we are losing the war on drugs. They argue that the jails are
being filled with these minor offenders and that our resources are
not being used wisely. As a prosecutor of 30 years, I can
unequivocally state that such claims are extreme exaggerations or
outright lies.
These advocates cannot show me a case in Vermont where a
person went to jail solely for the possession of a small amount of
pot. I have sent hundreds of people to diversion for such an
offense. In diversion, they are asked to do some counseling and
community service in exchange for their case being dismissed.
How many of Vermont's youths would take up pot smoking if it
were no longer against the law? A hundred? A thousand? Ten
thousand? Do we really want to permit the young people of this
state to engage in the use of a substance that robs them of
motivation, puts them in an altered state of mind, and potentially
has them driving on the highways of Vermont while under the
influence of marijuana?
One of the great television ads regarding marijuana shows a 20-
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something male playing video games with his friends in his
smoke-filled bedroom. A voice in the other room calls out to him
asking if he has found a job yet. The young man replies, "No, not
yet, Mom!" The viewer then realizes that these young men are
wasting their lives away playing video games in their parents'
homes. The ad concludes with the words, "Who says that
marijuana is not harmful?"
Those advocating for the decriminalization of marijuana know
that pot smoking puts the user in a dreamlike state of mind. They
get the "munchies" and have no ambition to accomplish anything.
Is that what we want for our children?
We are now part of a global society and global economy. Our
young people will be entering a workplace where we compete
with highly productive workers in other countries. Instead of
decriminalizing drug use, we should be setting an example that
people get ahead by getting a good education, working hard, and
being productive. If we want to compete in a global society, we
need to be motivated to produce materials and ideas for the
world. Pot smoking will not assist our society in becoming more
productive.
While I don't subscribe to the scare tactics of others that
marijuana use automatically leads to harder drugs, it is often the
case that I see a person charged with heroin, cocaine, or some
other "hard drug" has a prior conviction for possession of
marijuana. Those with "addictive" personalities, and who might
not have ever tried marijuana for fear of arrest by the authorities,
may find themselves tempted by the high of marijuana and want
to try something a little stronger. If keeping marijuana use illegal
keeps one kid from becoming a drug addict, then we've saved a
life.
While we are considering the impact on the youth of this state,
we had also better consider the impact on the rest of us when the
other 49 states discover that Vermont allows pot smoking. Will
every "pot head" in the country decide to move to Vermont?
Shouldn't we be advocating for healthy lifestyles? I thought we
were trying to get people to stop smoking. Decriminalizing
marijuana in Vermont will lead to more smoking by our youth
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and an increased risk of lung cancer. Decriminalizing marijuana
in Vermont will lead to more substance abuse and unhealthy
lifestyles. It's a bad idea.
John T. Quinn of Weybridge is Addison County state's attorney.
Source: Burlington Free Press (VT)
Author: John Quinn
Published: Sunday, January 13, 2008
Copyright: 2008 Burlington Free Press
Contact: letters@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com
Website: http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/
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Richmond P. Hobson
The Father of Alcohol Prohibition
www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hobson.htm
Richmond P. Hobson, a representative from Alabama, voiced his support
for a prohibition amendment on the floor of the House of Representatives
on December 22, 1914. The proposed amendment received a majority of
votes, but not the necessary two-thirds majority to proceed with the
process. The following is scanned from K. Austin Kerr, The Politics of
Moral Behavior: Prohibition and Drug Abuse. (Long out of print)
Hobson:
What is the object of this resolution? It is to destroy the agency that
debauches the youth of the land and thereby perpetuates its hold upon the
Nation. How does the resolution proposed to destroy this agent? In the
simplest manner… It does not coerce any drinker. It simply says that
barter and sale, matters that have been a public function from the semicivilized days of society, shall not continue the debauching of the youth.
Now the Liquor Trust are wise enough to know that they can not
perpetuate their sway by depending on debauching grown people, so they
go to an organic method of teaching the young to drink. Now we apply
exactly the same method to destroy them. We do not try to force old
drinkers to stop drinking, but we do effectively put an end to the
systemic, organized, debauching of our youth through thousands and tens
of thousands of agencies throughout the land. Men here may try to
escape the simplicity of this problem. They cannot. Some are trying to
defend alcohol by saying that its abuse only is bad and that its temperate
use is all right. Science absolutely denies this, and proclaims that
drunkenness does not produce one tenth of the harm to society that the
widespread temperate moderate drinking does. Some say it is
adulterations that harms. Some are trying to say that it is only distilled
liquors that do harm. Science comes in now and says that all alcohol does
harm; that the malt and fermented liquors produce vastly more harm than
distilled liquors, and that it is the general public use of such drinks that
has entailed the gradual decline in degeneracy of the nations of the past.
The wets have no foundation in scientific truth to stand upon, and so
they resort to all kinds of devious methods.
Their favorite contention is that we cannot reach the evil because of
our institutions. This assumes that here is something very harmful and
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injurious to the public health and morals that imperils our very
institutions themselves and their perpetuity of the Nation, but the Nation
has not within itself, because of its peculiar organization, the power to
bring about the public good and a great public wrong. They invoke the
principle of States rights. As a matter of fact, we are fighting more
consistently for States rights than they ever dreamed of. We know the
States have the right to settle this question, and furthermore our
confidence in three quarters of all the States to act wisely does not lead
us to fear that if we submit a proposition to them they might establish an
imperialistic empire. We believe that three quarters of all the States have
the wisdom as well as the right to settle the national Prohibition question
for this country.
Neither can we take refuge about any assumed question of individual
liberty. We do not say that a man shall not drink. We ask for no
sumptuary action. We do not say that a man shall not have or make
liquor in his own home for his own use. Nothing of that sort is
involved in this resolution. We only touched the sale. A man may feel
he has a right to drink, but he certainly has no inherent right to sell
liquor. A man's liberties are absolutely secure in this resolution. The
liberties and sanctity of the home are protected. The liberties of the
community are secure, the liberties of the county are secure, and the
liberties of the state are secure.
Let no one imagined that a state today has the real power and
right to be wet of its own volition. Under the taxing power of the
Federal Government by act of Congress, Congress could make every
State in the country dry. They need not think it is an inherent right for a
State to be wet; it is not; but there is an inherent right in every State in
every county in every township to be dry, and these rights are now
trampled upon, and this monster prides himself in trampling upon them.
Why, here today Member after Member has proclaimed that
prohibition does not prohibit, and I have heard them actually tell us that
prohibition could not prohibit. They tell us that this interstate liquor
power is greater than the national Government.
I say now, as I said before, I will meet this fall on a hundred
battlefields. If the Sixty-third Congress does not grant this plain right of
the people for this referendum to change their organic law, to meet this
mighty evil, the Sixty-fourth Congress will be likewise invoked. I do not
say that we are going to get a two thirds majority here tonight… because
we have not yet had a chance to appeal to Caesar: but I do say that the
day is coming when we shall have that referendum sent to the states, nor
is that day as distant as some may imagine.
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Unless this question has been made a State matter, as we are asking
now for it to be so made by being removed from national politics, and
referred to the States – if this is not done by the intervening Congresses, I
here announce to you the determination of the great moral, the great
spiritual, the great temperance and prohibition forces of this whole
Nation to make this question the paramount issue in nineteen sixteen, not
only to gain a two thirds majority in the Houses of Congress, but to have
an administration that is either in the open nor undercover will fight this
reform, so that in the spring of 1917 with an extraordinary session of the
Sixty-fifth Congress we will have a command the * masters of men and
of Congress to grant this right to the people. My appeal is to each one of
you now, be a man when the vote is taken and do your duty. (Applause)
A Habit Forming Drug
Alcohol has the property of chloroform and ether of penetrating
actually into the nerve fibers themselves, putting the tissues under an
anesthetic which prevents pain at first, but when the anesthetic effect is
over discomfort follows throughout the tissues of the whole body,
particularly the nervous system, which causes a craving for relief by
recourse to the very substance that produces the disturbance. This
craving grows directly with the amount and regularity of the drinking.
Undermines the Willpower
The poisoning attack of alcohol is especially severe in the cortex
cerebrum, the top part of the brain where resides the center of inhibition,
or of willpower, causing partial paralysis, which liberates lower activities
otherwise held in control, causing a man to be more of a brute, but to
imagine that he has been stimulated, when he is really partially
paralyzed. This center of inhibition is the seat of the willpower, which of
necessity declines a little and strength every time I partial paralysis takes
place.
Little less of a Man after Each Drink
Thus, a man is little less of a man after each drink he takes. In this
way, continued drinking causes a progressive weakening of the will and
a progressive growing of the craving, so that after a time, if persisted in,
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there must come a point where the will power cannot control the craving
and the victim is in the grip of the habit.
Slaves in Shackles
When the drinking begins young, the power of the habit becomes
overwhelming, and the victim might as well have shackles. It is
estimated that there are five million heavy drinkers and drunkards in
America, and these men might as well have a ball and chain on their
ankles, for they are more slaves than those black men who were driven
by slave owners.
Present-Day Slave Owners
These victims are driven imperatively to procure their liquor, no
matter at what cost. In the few thousand brewers and distillers, making
up the organizations composing the great Liquor Trust, have a monopoly
of the supply, and they therefore owned these five million slaves and
threw them they are able to collect two and one half billions of dollars
cash from the American people every year.
Liquor Degenerates the Character
The first finding of science that alcohol is a protoplasmic poison and
the second finding that it is an insidious, habit-forming drug, though of
great importance, are as unimportant when compared with the third
finding, that alcohol degenerates the character of men and tears down
their spiritual nature. Like the other members of the group of oxide
derivatives of hydrocarbons, alcohol is not only a general poison, but it
has a chemical affinity or deadly appetite for certain particular tissues.
Strychnine tears down the spinal cord. Alcohol tears down the top part of
the brain in a man, attacks certain tissues in an animal, certain cells in the
flower. It has been established that whatever the line of the creatures
evolution, alcohol will attack that line. Every type and every species is
evolving in building from generation to generation along some particular
line. Man is evolving in the top part of the brain the seat of the will
power, the seat of the moral senses, and of the spiritual nature, the
recognition of right and wrong, the consciousness of God and of duty
and of brotherly love and of self-sacrifice.
Reverses the Life Principle of the Universe
158
All life in the universe is founded upon the principle of evolution.
Alcohol directly reverses that principle. Man has risen from the savage
up through successive steps to the level of the semi-savage, the semicivilized, and a highly civilized.
Liquor and the Red Man
Liquor promptly degenerates the red man, throws him back into
savagery. It will promptly put a tribe on the warpath.
Liquor and the Black Man
Liquor will actually make a brute out of a Negro, causing him to
commit unnatural crimes.
Liquor and the white man
The effect is the same on the white man, though the white man being
further evolved, it takes longer time to reduce him to the same level.
Starting young, however, it does not take a very long time to speedily
cause any man in the forefront of civilization to pass through the
successive stages and become semi-civilized, semi-savage, savage, and,
at last, below the brute.
The Great Tragedy
The spiritual nature of man gives dignity to his life above the life of
the brute. It is this spiritual nature of man that makes him in the image of
his Maker; so that the Bible referred to man as being a little lower than
the angels. It is a tragedy to blight the physical life. No measure can be
made of blighting the spiritual life.
The Bight Degeneracy
Nature does not tolerate reversing its evolutionary principle, and
proceeds automatically to exterminate any creature, any animal, any race,
and any species that degenerates. Nature adopts two methods of
extermination; one to shorten the life, the other to blight the offspring.
The Verdict
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Science has thus demonstrated that alcohol is a protoplasmic poison,
poisoning all things; that alcohol is a habit forming drug that shackles
millions of our citizens and maintain slavery in our midst; that it lowers
in a fearful way the standard of efficiency of the nation, reducing
enormously in national wealth, entailing startling burdens of taxation,
encumbering the public with the care of crime, pauperism, and insanity;
that it corrupts politics and public servants, corrupts the Government,
corrupts the public morals, lowers terrifically the average standard of
character of the citizenship, and undermines the liberties and institutions
of the Nation; that it undermines and blights the home and the family,
checks education, attacks the young when they are entitled to protection,
undermines the public health, slaughtering, killing, and wounding our
citizens many fold times more than war, pestilence, and famine
combined; that it blights the progeny of the Nation, flooding the land
with a horde of degenerates; that it strikes deadly blows at the life of the
Nation itself and at the very life of the race, reversing the great
evolutionary principles of nature and the purposes of the Almighty.
There can be but one verdict, and that is this great destroyer must be
destroyed. The time is ripe for fulfillment. The present generation, the
generation to which we belong, must cut this millstone of degeneracy
from the neck of humanity…
The Final Conclusion
To cure this organic disease we must have recourse to the organic
law. The people themselves must act upon this question. A generation
must be prevailed upon to place prohibition in their own constitutional
law, and such a generation could be counted upon to keep it in the
Constitution during its lifetime. The Liquor Trust of necessity would
disintegrate. The youth would grow up sober. The final, scientific
conclusion is that we must have constitutional prohibition, prohibiting
only the sale, the manufacture for sale, and everything that pertains to the
sale, and invoke the power of both Federal and State Governments for
enforcement. The resolution is drawn to fill these requirements.
Six years later, Congress passed the Eighteenth Amendment, which
gave the Federal Government the right to enforce alcohol Prohibition
against the manufacture and sale of hard liquor but not the manufacture
in one's own home for private use, of beer and wine. Nevertheless, the
Great Moral Experiment exacerbated all of the evils caused by hard
liquor Hobson wanted to eradicate.
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Alcohol consumption increased dramatically during Prohibition.
In 1933, under grass roots pressure from the American public, and a
platform of repeal offered by presidential candidate Franklin Delanor
Roosevelt, Congress gave up the effort to prohibit the sale of bootleg
alcohol and returned that responsibility to the states.
The Strange Case of Carrie A. Nation
Carrie Nation was a zealous proponent of the temperance movement
who gained a reputation for attacking bars with her six foot one hundred
seventy five pound frame and a hatchet. She had a slow start in life with
poor health, and a failed marriage to her first husband, Dr. Charles
Gloyd, an alcoholic who died a year after they separated. She attributes
her passion for fighting against liquor to her failed first marriage.
On Dec. 27, 1877, Carrie married her second husband Dr. David A.
Nation, an attorney, minister, and newspaper editor. Shortly thereafter,
she organized a local branch of the Women's Christian Temperance
Union and campaigned for the enforcement of Kansas's ban on the sales
of alcohol. Her methods began with simple protests but when that failed
to impress bar patrons she began to greet bartenders with the words,
"Good morning, destroyers of men's souls!" When that did not produce
reform, she tried serenading saloon patrons with religious songs
accompanied by a hand organ.
Having failed with peaceful persuasion, Carrie began to pray to God
for assistance. On June 15, 1900, she received a divine vision, which
161
instructed her to "take something in your hands, and throw it at these
bars in Kiowa and smash them."
Carrie followed these instructions and proceeded to Dobson's Saloon
where she smashed the saloons stock of liquor with rocks she carried in a
bag. A few days after she gave the same treatment to two other saloons, a
tornado hit eastern Kansas. Carry interpreted this as a sign that God
approved her actions.
Between 1900 and 1910, she marched into bars alone or with
supporters to pray and smash fixtures and bottles of booze with a hatchet.
She garnered thirty arrests and paid for the damage and court fees with
money she made from her lecture-tour fees and sales of souvenir
hatchets.
Her most famous episode occurred in Kansas City, Missouri a
stronghold of opposition to the temperance movement. She managed to
vandalize a number of bars on 12th Street in the downtown area before
the police caught up with her. She was arrested and fined $500 ($11,000
in 2006) by a judge who ordered her to leave Kansas City and never
return.
Carrie grabbed headlines in 1901 when she applauded the
assassination of President William McKinley because she believed that
McKinley secretly drank alcohol and that drinkers always got what they
deserved.
On June 9, 1911, she collapsed during a speech in Eureka Springs
Park, Arkansas and taken to a hospital where she died. The women's
Christian Temperance Union later erected a stone inscribed," Faithful to
the cause of prohibition, she hath done what she could."
162
On the 70th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition modern day
"Carrie Nations" are sharpening their axes to condemn all responsible
consumption of adult beverages. Find out more at NeoProhibition.com
163
President Nixon Fears a Jewish Plot to Destroy America's Youth
In October 1970, an angry Richard Nixon convinced Congress to offer
massive amounts of tax dollars to police departments across the country
to expand their narcotics units.
At that time, the police deemed adequate the size of their units to
control the narcotics trade. However, under pressure from the President,
sensational media coverage, and the offer money from Congress, police
departments across the country began a dramatic expansion. At the same
time, the new super sized units had to justify their new federal windfall
by increasing the number of arrests.
Very quickly, a unit that grew from ten to seventy narcotics officers
had to arrest seven times as many suspects each year as they did in
1970. In order to meet the new quotas the newly hired agents had to
infiltrate colleges, high schools, private social circles, ghettos and low
income projects to locate suspects. Congress made this possible by
redefining a drug dealer as anyone who shared a joint, or passed a pill!
By 2007, the number of felony arrests for simple possession of
marijuana reached an all time high of 738,915, which contradicted police
assertions they were not targeting users.
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The Course of Zero Tolerance
• The opium poppy, coca bush, tobacco, and marijuana plants
began their existence as worthless weeds. They had no value until people
began to ingest them to relax and socialize, relieve pain and alter
perception. The demand for the active ingredients found in these plants
created a thriving market between growers, dealers and consumers.
• Pleasure and profit are powerful human urges that lawmakers
can regulate but not banish. The attempt to do so creates violence,
criminality and death. Prohibition creates a split in society between those
who fight for pleasure, free choice and a hefty profit, and those who fight
against the damage done by abuse and addiction.
• Throughout history, prohibitionists have focused solely on the
damage caused by drug and alcohol addiction. Their goal is always the
same - to catch and punish manufacturers, dealers and consumers of
these dangerous substances. This leads to the building of a massive
prison empire to warehouse the millions of new prisoners. Richard Nixon
called this campaign against people the "war against drugs." After thirty
years of failure, prohibitionists adopted the term "harm reduction" when
they realized what they were up against.
• Somewhere between the prohibitionists and the drug lords stand
the legalizers. The legalizers are trying to reduce the damage done by
drug lords and prohibitionists. They believe in a compassionate approach
to human suffering and see drug abusers and addicts as a medical
problem- not a crime. They compare the damage caused by drug and
alcohol addiction with the damage done by home invasions, felony
convictions, confiscation of assets and loss of job, driver's license and
voting rights. They believe that the current drug policy does not improve
the quality of life; instead, it creates a climate of corruption, violence and
fear. The attempt to outlaw human urges by passing laws exposes the gap
between public perception and private behavior.
• The attempt to rid the country of all illicit drugs attacks the
fundamental right to privacy and freedom that once made America a
proud example to the rest of the world. It is apparent from looking at the
entrenched alcohol and tobacco industries that any sensible policy of
harm reduction is doomed to failure. Given that these two drugs are the
worst, why are they not on the list of dangerous, illegal drugs? Under the
current drug laws, the tobacco addicts and alcoholics receive medical
care while illicit drug users face arrest. The diversion of $69 billion a
year in tax revenue away from education and treatment into a privately
run prison empire throws obscene amounts of money down the rat hole.
165
• According to a 2005 national survey by the U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services only 5% of illicit drug users felt they
needed treatment.
• Prohibitionists welcome new technologies such as urine, saliva,
blood and hair testing, which makes it easier to identify and arrest
potential suspects. The urine tests target the pot smokers since the active
ingredient, THC, is not water-soluble and remains in the body of a
chronic user for up to a month. As a result, drug users switch to watersoluble drugs like cocaine, prescription drugs, and alcohol, which leave
the body more rapidly.
• The "war against drugs" coupled with the "war against terror"
has increased the public debt to over nine trillion dollars with an
additional 1.9 billion added each day This adds up to over $30,000 for
each taxpayer to pay back, someday. Who will pay this back? If the
federal government were a business operating on a profit and loss basis,
the IRS would have revoked the spending privileges of Congress and the
White House a long time ago.
• The menacing atmosphere promoted by the DEA has made the
reduction of heroin, cocaine, and marijuana virtually impossible. The
fear of sending the wrong message to kids gives the nod to more adult
arrests. After a neighborhood sweep, violent gangs move in to replace
low-level dealers carted away by the police. Competition between corner
gangs lead to gunfights that kill innocent bystanders and terrorize
neighborhoods.
• The fight for profits and territory we witnessed during alcohol
prohibition continues without end with cannabis, coke, and heroin. Crude
weapons of terror will never work against human nature and must
eventually give way to peaceful solutions such as redesigning the human
genome. Reprogrammed cells and switched off receptors in the brain will
one day eliminate outlawed urges and make future drug wars
unnecessary. The wars will be over who controls genetic programming
technology.
The Balloon Effect
The war against people who manufacture, deliver and consume
"controlled" substances is like the squeezing of a balloon. When law
enforcement cracks down on one route, the cartels shift to a different
route. When the border patrol tightens surveillance at the border,
suppliers fly overhead or dig tunnels that connect buildings on each side
of the border.
166
The planting of coca, opium poppies and cannabis provides income
for poor farmers in Colombia, South America, and Afghanistan. When
the DEA sprays opium poppies fields with Monsanto's herbicide.
Roundup, farmers plant their cash crop in a more remote area. When the
U.S. government orders poppies eradicated, the farmers then switch to
cannabis. If governments do not provide adequate compensation to plant
food crops, farmers will accept payment from drug dealers or the Taliban
to plant drug crops. If there are no roads or rivers to transport crops to
market, farmers will grow whatever it takes to feed their families. It is
simply a business decision that, sadly, provides a steady supply of cash
for terrorists.
In California, when the marijuana eradication teams dismantle
grow-ops in the national and state forests, the growers move the crop
indoors. All growers respond to each move made by the police and DEA
so that nothing ever changes.
The DEA's Secret Mission
1.
2.
3.
4.
Discourage all public debate critical of current U.S. drug policy.
Promote new methods for enforcing Prohibition.
Treat any mention of legalized regulation with contempt.
Hide or destroy all Government reports that recommended a
change in policy.
5. Prosecute activists and legalizers. If possible, catch them in
possession of, or transferring, a controlled substance.
6. Arrest and force non-violent offenders into the prison industry to
work low paying jobs. The average cost of housing one prisoner
is $40,000 tax dollars per year.
On the international scene, the DEA has become a hostage of its own
geopolitical forces. Their policy of intervention in the internal affairs of
other countries to enforce U.S. drug laws has provided a source of funding
for worldwide terrorism. Political candidates promise to support the drug
war to receive money from Congress. After the election, they can do
business with cartels and receive U.S. aid at the same time. The crackdown
targets drug traffickers outside their circle of friends and family.
.
167
Problems with the DEA's Position
The DEA has employed a variety of tactics in its efforts to deter
people, especially the young, from experimenting with controlled
substances. One tactic is to exaggerate the dangers of soft drugs like
marijuana. Our current drug czar, John Walters, warns audiences that the
new hydroponic strains called "skunk "is not your grandfather's
marijuana." Walters calls today's strains "marijuana 2.0." because of the
higher percentage of THC. The tone of Walter's condescending speech
assumes that a responsible adult – such as himself – does not know how
to limit (titrate) the amount of a chemical taken into the body.
Ronald Reagan boldly declared marijuana, "the most dangerous drug
on the planet." He also stated, "I now have absolute proof that
smoking even one marijuana cigarette is equal in brain damage to
being on Bikini Island during an H-bomb blast."
Was this an early warning of Mr. Reagan's demise from Alzheimer's
disease or an example of presidential ignorance?
Close to twenty million Americans smoke marijuana regularly and
over ninety million have tried it at least once in the last century, without
evidence of brain damage. Unlike heroin, coke, alcohol and tobacco
abuse, not a single person has died from smoking or eating
marijuana.
On Sept 6, 1988 the DEA's chief administrative judge Francis Young
concluded after extensive hearings with expert witnesses and thousands
of pages of documentation that "Marijuana in its natural form, is one
of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man."
The judge's findings and recommendation to move Marijuana and
hemp from Schedule 1 were dismissed by the top DEA officials - the
one's who made and enforced the law.
Last night I watched Kevin Costner's prohibition film "The
Untouchables." In one scene, the newly appointed federal agents sat
around a table and puffed on cigars as they planned their next alcohol
bust. Afterwards, Costner's right-hand man, Sean Connery, sneaks a
drink from a bottle of alcohol he had stashed in a cabinet. Is this scene
any different for those played out by individuals who rob and destroy
state-licensed medical marijuana dispensaries?
During the Congressional hearings tobacco executives lied to
Congress and the public about addiction and death from tobacco to
168
protect their jobs and profits. Unfortunately, the cannabis plant has no
army of power lawyers and lobbyists to protect it from attack. Instead,
the government uses taxes to attack cannabis through the media. The
newspapers, radio, and television industries have joined forces to
broadcast a steady stream of negative messages while at the same time
running pro-drug ads from pharmaceutical companies.
Cost/Benefit Analysis
It is virtually impossible to calculate the actual cost of prohibition
versus legal regulation. We have too many variables that cannot fit into
an economic chart for analysis. If the argument were simply a business
decision, however it is obvious that legal regulation is far cheaper than
the cost of 800,000 arrests, court appearances, drug tests, imprisonment,
and probation.
If the Government would arrest only those who cause trouble, the
cost to taxpayers would plummet. If the Government allowed clinics and
licensed taxable outlets, the prisons would disappear.
Drug War Costs Vs Drug Use Costs (2002 $billions)
Cost of Drug War1
Cost of Drug Use
Year
Total Cost
Sub-total
% of
Total
Sub-total
% of Total
1992
$144.37
$96.63
66.9
$47.74
33.1
1993
$145.59
$97.38
66.9
$48.21
33.1
1994
$150.29
$101.73
67.7
$48.56
32.3
1995
$156.34
$108.22
69.2
$48.12
30.8
1996
$157.66
$115.63
73.3
$42.03
26.7
1997
$160.27
$122.03
76.1
$38.24
23.9
1998
$165.26
$127.31
77.0
$37.95
23.0
1999
$174.84
$133.75
76.5
$41.09
23.5
2000
$179.24
$137.87
76.9
$41.37
23.1
2001
$184.03
$141.32
76.8
$42.71
23.2
$193.35
$148.62
76.9
$44.73
23.1
2002
Location of data analysis: http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/feddata/costs/real-costs05.htm
169
The chart shows that the cost of the drug war in billions of taxpayer
dollars continues to outstrip the cost of drug use.
In January 2008, as the number of drug arrests reaches its highest
level in history, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, proposed a
reduction of state prison inmates by 35,000 and the release of 22,000
prisoners (possibly non violent pot smokers?) over the next two years. If
approved - which it was not - the new state budget would have cut prison
staff by 6,000 including the layoff of 2,000 prison guards because taxes
cannot keep up with the escalating cost. The same fiscal bankruptcy
faces most other states as well.
The cost to put a single drug dealer in jail for five years is about
$450,000 - enough to provide treatment and education for two hundred
people. Keep in mind that under federal law a drug dealer is anyone who
passes a joint or even a pill, without a doctor's prescription.
Every dollar spent incarcerating a crackhead, dope smoker, or pill
freak creates an additional fifteen dollars in welfare costs. Every dollar
spent on treatment and education saves about five dollars in related
welfare costs. (DEA statistics)
Under a more realistic policy, adults nabbed by police in an
apartment containing small amounts of drugs or drug paraphernalia may
find themselves in a drug diversion court - a cheap alternative to prison.
Possession is still a crime but only because the Federal
government says it is a crime. For those who are intelligent and well
educated, the mandatory drug treatment and re-education program is a
violation of civil rights - or simply a joke.
The DEA has evolved from a regulatory agency concerned about
protecting and serving the public to an agency of terror and violence
against the public. Under their policy, anyone who shares a joint, gives
away a prescription pill, or is in the company of those who do, is a drug
dealer or conspirator facing criminal charges. This is light years away
from Jefferson's declaration of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Imagine the thrill of breaking down doors and trashing the homes of
people who disobey the marijuana laws. Compared to the average job,
forcing Prohibition on citizens who disagree, is exciting and stimulating
work. The first step in a no-knock warrantless home invasion is to
separate the front door from its hinges with a battering ram. The next
170
step is to separate the screaming children from the terrified parents and
force each person to the floor with a gun to the head. Once the agents
have restored order, they can bring in the dogs and ransack the premises,
looking for drugs and paraphernalia.
If they find any, they can legally confiscate the suspect's property
and assets, turn the children over to child services and lodge felony
charges against the parents. They can also revoke a driver's license and
voting rights.
When taking down a state licensed dispensary, they may simply steal
the money in the drawer, confiscate the marijuana and trash the interior.
If the owner has money in the bank, they can seize the account and any
personal property they might want to keep. (In fairness, agents may raid
certain dispensaries because the operators became greedy and violated
their license agreement. Licenses limit bulk purchases, forbid sales
without a doctor's prescription or sales to minors. Amsterdam has the
same restrictions on their dispensaries.)
The authority for these raids come from the conclusion reached by
the Justice Department, the White House, the Supreme Court, the FDA
and Congress' that marijuana has no medical or recreational value;
instead, marijuana is a dangerous, addictive, gateway drug that causes
insanity; that weakens and destroys the fabric of American society.
I assume that DEA agents are authoritarian men and women who
despise drug users and believe they are protecting the children – children
who, in some neighborhoods, are drug dealers themselves. DEA agents
who see the broken homes, trashed lives, assaults, rapes, murders and
destroyed property know that education and clinics (shooting galleries)
that dispense free drugs to addicts, do not work. People continue to abuse
addictive drugs like cocaine and meth, heroin and marijuana – marijuana
being the gateway to the hard drug culture. Young people need to be
scared straight by the fear of imprisonment before they will listen and
obey.
DEA Raid Strategy:
•
Throw darts at a dartboard to schedule random attacks.
•
Provide media coverage after each raid to send a message to
the public.
•
Harvest the low hanging fruit. Forget the heavily armed and
organized drug gangs in Columbia, Afghanistan, Mexico
and Canada and go after the dispensaries, sitting there with
171
no violent inclinations at all - just a sign saying Medical
Cannabis - come and bust us. After the highly successful
DEA threat letters to landlords in California you would
have to be a hero or a lunatic to open a dispensary.
I presume the typical DEA agent derives satisfaction from arresting
those who break the law. The fact that so many people use unprescribed
drugs to soften the misery of their lives is no excuse.
Occasionally drug warriors must sympathize with their victims
especially the potheads who rarely, if ever, put up a fight. However, the
fun of counting the money and weighing the drugs makes it all
worthwhile especially when the reporters arrived to snap pictures and
interview the arresting officers and agents. The next morning they can
read about the bust and see their picture in the paper. Still, after a century
of these raids and one trillion dollars spent, there must be a longing for
the good old days when cops were friends you could trust
Save the Children
During alcohol prohibition, the media launched a campaign to "save
the children from alcohol. Incredibly, more children began drinking
alcohol during the campaign than at any time before or since!
Children became involved in bootlegging and teen admissions to
hospitals skyrocketed. Schools cancelled dances because too many kids
showed up with whisky flasks on their hips. A campaign to "save the
children from prohibition" finally repealed the law and reduced the
problem.
In the '60's a wave of glue sniffing, amphetamine and LSD use
followed the printing of sensational headlines by the news media. The
advertising blitz boosted the sale of newspapers and offered kids a new
opportunity for excitement and danger. In other words if you want kids
to experiment with a new drug - publicize it.
"Our country has deliberately undertaken a great social and economic
experiment, noble in motive and far reaching in purpose."
~Herbert Hoover~
Clara Due: "Well, no, it didn't work. It was terrible. It just made it all
the more exciting for the young kids. They probably wouldn't have
172
bothered with it if it wasn't illegal. But, you know, it really made it
exciting to do something you're not supposed to do."
Mildred Opitz said, "We had our booze. You know - coming down
here to the auditorium where you couldn't buy a drink or anything. So we
always take it with us. And then we'd go back to the car and spike it with
7-up or something like that, or Squirt - whatever. Anyway, we'd always
take our little bit of bourbon with us."
During Prohibition, consumers switched to patent medicines,
narcotics, hashish, tobacco and marijuana.
In 1925, five years after Prohibition began, the average
American over the age of fourteen was drinking 32 gallons of alcohol
a year.
"Before Prohibition, most men drank in saloons. After Prohibition,
they began drinking in the home, which exposed the family to the evils
of alcohol even more so than before."
President Nixon Fears a Jewish Plot to Destroy America's Youth
In October 1970, Nixon convinced Congress to open the Treasury
and release massive amounts of tax dollars to police departments across
the country to expand their narcotics units.
At that time, the police deemed adequate the size of their units to
control the narcotics trade. However, under pressure from the President,
sensational media coverage and the offer of federal dollars, police
departments began to expand dramatically. At the same time, the new
super sized units had to justify their new federal windfall by increasing
the number of arrests.
A unit that grew from ten to seventy narcotics officers had to arrest
seven times as many suspects each year as they did in 1970. In order to
meet the new quotas the newly hired agents had to infiltrate colleges,
high schools and private social circles to locate suspects. Congress made
this possible by redefining a drug dealer as anyone who shared a joint, or
passed a pill.
In 2007, the number of felony arrests for simple possession of
marijuana reached an all time high, which contradicted the police
assertions they were not targeting users.
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Marijuana Arrests and Total Drug Arrests in the US
Year
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
1990
1980
1970
Total
Total
Marijuana Marijuana
Drug Marijuana Trafficking/Sale Possession
Arrests
Arrests
Arrests
Arrests
1,846,351
1,745,712
1,678,192
1,538,813
1,586,902
1,579,566
1,532,200
1,559,100
1,583,600
1,506,200
1,476,100
1,089,500
580,900
415,600
786,545
771,605
755,186
697,082
723,628
734,497
704,812
682,885
695,201
641,642
588,964
326,850
401,982
180,000
Year
2006
2007
2008
90,471
87,286
92,300
83,096
82,519
88,455
84,271
84,191
88,682
94,891
85,614
66,460
63,318
696,074
684,319
662,886
613,986
641,109
646,042
620,541
598,694
606,519
546,751
503,350
260,390
338,664
Total
Violent
Crime
Arrests
Total
Property
Crime
Arrests
603,503
590,258
597,026
620,510
627,132
625,132
644,770
675,900
717,750
729,900
796,250
1,609,327
1,649,825
1,605,127
1,613,954
1,618,465
1,620,928
1,676,100
1,805,600
2,015,600
2,045,600
2,128,600
Marijuana Possession Arrests
696,074
738,915
900,000 (all time high)
Prison Guard Unions actively lobby Congress to build more federal
prisons ( paid for by the 500 billion dollars borrowed each year from
China.
174
A Policy of Harm Reduction
For decades, the US Government allowed the tobacco industry to
advertise its product on television and in magazines with no mention of
addiction and lung cancer. When big tobacco finally admitted the danger,
the Government responded with reasonable and accurate warnings. The
warnings reduced cigarette smoking by fifty percent without arresting
anyone. A series of health messages, patches, and gums followed which
helped people to quit.
On the heels of its success against smoked tobacco, prohibitionists
next placed the spotlight of public awareness on smoked cannabis.
The carcinogens in cannabis smoke quickly became the new hot
topic. Federal narcotics agents and local police could now arrest users,
confiscate their property and bank account, send their children to social
services, and lock them up in prison - to prevent lung cancer.
Prohibitionists argue that today's super "skunk" is too powerful for
people to smoke; however, I can drink a lethal amount of Jack Daniels
any time I please.
Home invasions, wire-tapping, opening of postal and e-mail always
required a warrant – until now. Congress routinely approves of poisons
sprayed on food crops, farm animals, and children in Mexico, South
America, and Afghanistan – in a futile effort to kill weeds.
A few years ago, I watched a teenage girl on television raise a frying
pan over her head and bring it down with extreme force on a chicken
egg. Afterwards, she holds up the bottom of the pan so I can see the
gooey mess drip off the bottom. The message: "This is your brain on
drugs."
After I stop laughing, I watch the girl smash everything within reach
and I wonder how much of my tax money went to waste on that message.
A more effective ad would have teenagers addicted to heroin or crystal
meth give me a close up of their rotting teeth and ugly infections from
dirty needles. That kind of exposure would scare me away from
experimenting with hard drugs.
Prohibitionists have made many mistakes trying to create a drug free
America. One is the term "controlled substance”. A controlled substance
is legal, regulated, and taxed. Marijuana is not a controlled substance.
The Marihuana Tax Act turned marijuana from a controlled substance
into an uncontrolled substance – grown and distributed by individuals
and criminal gangs in an unregulated market.
175
Another mistake is the belief that arrest and imprisonment is a
"deterrent". If this were true, marijuana would have faded away long ago;
instead, the lies and scare tactics have increased the drug's popularity.
The fear of arrest does not work, because those who participate believe
that law enforcement will never catch them. A drug bust often comes as a
complete surprise. The usual pot smoker cannot see anything wrong with
smoking cannabis buds and does not understand why the Government
makes such a fuss about it. Growers see nothing wrong with growing the
weed and selling it at a huge profit to their willing customers.
The majority of Americans believe in a "live and let live" policy
unless someone breaks the social contract by damaging property or
causing injury to others. When someone becomes a public nuisance or
inflicts self-injury, intervention may become necessary - but aside from
that, our homes are supposedly a place of privacy where the police will
not go without a warrant signed by a judge, based on probable cause.
The need for "harm reduction" is now more important than
inalienable rights. Harm reduction means the federal government decides
what I can put in my own body. My decisions no longer matter.
If the Government is so committed to harm reduction, why not
declare a war against obesity? Ban all fatty food ads on television and
close down the fast food outlets. Take fat people into custody and put
them on a prison diet to prevent diabetes - a deadly disease.
I presume most of us still believe we have the right to choose what
we do with our own bodies. As a former Catholic, I know that religious
people believe our bodies belong to God and Prohibitionists believe that
our bodies belong to them – to test for drugs.
Fortunately, I have always believed that I am my body – and it
belongs only to me. The government must ask permission to inspect my
body for drugs and the answer is always no. Prohibition represents
Christian Fundamentalist values and violates the separation of Church
from the State.
Did you know that more than 600,000 people die from legal alcohol,
tobacco, and prescription drugs each year compared to the 17,000 who
die from illegal drugs sold by street vendors? Surprisingly, the substance
the DEA hates and fears the most – THC – has never killed anyone.
On paper, the DEA, FDA, and other Federal agencies keep a tight
rein on cannabis. Under the law, cannabis is right where it belongs in
Schedule 1, next to heroin because cannabis is a dangerous mindaltering substance with no medical value and a high probability of abuse.
The Temperance Society preached the same warning about alcohol, a
dangerous, mind-altering substance that truly does causes violence,
criminality, and death.
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Licensed pharmaceutical companies deliver truckloads of Ritalin to
kids who have difficulty paying attention in class. The short-term effects
on kids allergic to Ritalin can include nervousness and insomnia, loss of
appetite, nausea and vomiting, dizziness, palpitations, headaches,
changes in heart rate and blood pressure, skin rashes and itching,
abdominal pain, weight loss, and digestive problems, toxic psychosis,
psychotic episodes, drug dependence syndrome and severe depressions
upon withdrawal. This drug is a dangerous, mind-altering drug, sold to
parents with government approval.
A Failed Eternal Drug War
A century of persecution has failed to rid the world of this useful
plant. Here's why:
Cannabis is a weed. Anyone can grow marijuana in a closet, attic or
basement using a hydroponic kit and compact fluorescent or led (low
wattage) lighting. New strains appear on the market – some as small as
twelve inches high with a 60-day life cycle that anyone can order on the
internet. Small pants are much harder for the police to discover and
destroy compared to the twelve to twenty foot plants that foreign
nationals and gangs now cultivate in our state and national forests. Some
growers tie the plants horizontally and allow the branches to grow
upwards which makes them harder to spot from overhead.
The persecution of Cannabis has triggered arguments over personal
freedom. Religion, cultural and racial differences, political power,
money, and the right to happiness have all become important issues. The
drug war pits individuals against the State and the State against the
Federal government. It turns peace officers into terrorists and terrorists
into drug dealers. It pits governments against one another and against
International Law. It reveals that one person’s truth is another person's
lie.
The fantasy of a drug free America has driven Congress to waste
sixty nine billion dollars each year from a looted treasury to hunt down
and arrest twenty million pot smokers. Instead of strict regulation and
taxation, we prefer more cops with paramilitary equipment to conduct
warrantless searches of cars, individuals, and homes.
The new Corporate America is well on its way to becoming a police
state. Our Government has violated the sovereignty of many countries
abroad and incurred the hostility of much of the world. We have the most
citizens in prison per capita and the greatest loss of rights, thanks to the
Patriot Act and the War against Drugs and Terror. The confiscation laws
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have increased opportunities for corruption among public officials and
law enforcement.
Karen Tandy, the former head of the DEA recently announced that
her agency was nearly self-sufficient thanks to the confiscation laws.
According to Tandy, if her agents tear your house apart and find a single
seed, you, and all your property belongs to them. Before Congress
approved confiscation, the privacy of the home was sacrosanct. Congress
thought confiscation was a good idea because it reduced the financial
burden on the Treasury - a cost-saving measure that dismissed the notion
of privacy. After all, this is war.
Some people believe that only those involved with illegal drugs
need worry about these tough new rules. This is not true. Anyone
"associated" in any way with cannabis - be it through a family member, a
friend, a car stop, or a telephone conversation, is a suspect. No one is
above suspicion.
The financial rewards and the adrenaline rush of illegal home
invasions are so addictive to DEA agents and local police, they
sometimes "testi-lie" in court to protect "their" newly acquired property.
Law enforcement officers collect points for each arrest, which add up to
promotions. If you are the target of one of 60,000 nationwide home
invasions, you cannot prosecute the attack team for violations of your
civil rights (if they are federal DEA agents).
Another enlightened policy is to treat teen offenders as adults and
send them to a "drug free environment" in federal prison. Federal prisons
are 80% full of drug offenders who have access to drugs smuggled in
(mostly) by prison staff. Beatings, rapes, and stabbings take place in the
prison environment. This is the most brutal way to send a message to a
teenager who sells a $5.00 joint to an undercover officer.
As a rising number of non-violent drug users file in through the front
gate, violent criminals leave to make room in our overcrowded prisons.
This is not an exaggeration.
Money and Power
The Fourth Amendment guarantees, "The right of the people to be
secure in their houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable
searches and seizures." The Constitution guarantees us the
“inalienable" right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
When prohibitionists smoke tobacco and drink alcohol they do so
under the rules agreed upon by the Founding Fathers, most notably by
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the libertarian, Thomas Jefferson. When Prohibitionists try to abolish
these rules and set up their own policies, the result is violence.
When Conservative Christian lawmakers decide to flood the prisons
with those who choose a different lifestyle its called "tough love".
What we have created in America is not "tough love. It is a "war
against people" - our children, our neighbors, our friends, and ourselves.
Drug gangs, police unions, prison industries, drug testing companies,
the pharmaceutical industry, cotton and chemical conglomerates, HMO's,
insurance companies and parent's organizations, all support Prohibition
because Prohibition means Profit. At the same time, it is easy to run
campaigns that convince anxious parents to vote for politicians who
promise (and then fail) to get rid of dangerous drugs
The Federal Government fears the consequences if they abandon
Prohibition and return the legal management of drugs to the states. This
could send a wrong message and lead to an epidemic of drug addiction,
right? Inmates released from Federal prisons may flood the streets.
No one knows for sure what will happen. What we do know is that
after the repeal of alcohol prohibition the amount of drinking
increased before it returned to pre-Prohibition levels. In other words,
people managed themselves instead of leaving it to Congress to decide.
Despite the drug warrior's absurd claim that pot smokers finance
terrorism, it is actually Prohibition that finances terrorism. When a
government refuses to supply a commodity that is in demand, the
production and sale of that commodity is up for grabs. The unregulated
production of "soft" drugs like cannabis or "hard" drugs like cocaine and
heroin, is an easy way to finance a revolution – especially when the
people who are buying the drugs don't care where it comes from. Our
own CIA tried this in South America with Oliver North and the Contra
scandal. Some sources say Osama bin Laden raises cash by trafficking in
heroin. After the revolution, the new Islamic leaders prohibit drugs and
execute drug dealers.
Cannabis: The Good and the Bad
The US Government has provided a tool to Americans to fight
Prohibition. We call it the Internet. Everything prohibitionists do not
want to admit about illicit drugs and the failed drug policy is online for
all to see. Many web sites have form letters ready for anti-prohibitionists
to sign and send in to lawmakers. Congressional representatives and
senators count the number of these letters before they decide an issue.
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If you use the Net for research, you will discover that cannabis is the
most useful plant on earth. The potential of industrial hemp for
biodegradable food, fuel, clothing, paper, construction, nutrition, and
erosion control is well documented. The psychoactive strains, cannabis
indica, and cannabis sativa have a long history of medical and
recreational use, beginning with that first moment, long ago, when
someone tossed a pile of dried cannabis plants on the campfire and
everybody got stoned. Smoked, vaporized, or eaten, cannabis flowers
contain mood-altering chemicals that heighten awareness, produce
euphoria, intoxicate, or relax the user. Certain people with an interest in
the spiritual claim it produces divine visions.
Those who consume marijuana for medical reasons claim it
stimulates appetite, controls nausea (from chemotherapy), reduces pain
and muscle spasms (from multiple sclerosis) and eases depression (post
traumatic stress) caused by combat experience.
Under US Federal Law, marijuana is not a medicine and doctors
cannot use it to treat these conditions.
Some people may discover they are allergic to marijuana. Some
people suffer a bad reaction the first time or only after years of heavy
use. If this happens to you, then do the smart thing – stop using it.
Users fall into five groups - the medical user, the one-time
experimenter, the occasional user, the regular user, and the heavy
(chronic) user or addict, who cannot function without it.
Society appears most tolerant of the medical user, and less so of
recreational users. The regular user and the chronics are most likely to
get into trouble. I have read that roughly ten percent of heavy users reach
the limits of what their body can convert and experience an allergic
reaction. There is uncorroborated evidence in the U.K. (Britain) that
mental illness such as schizophrenia can afflict 20% of those who smoke
Super Skunk - a strain of cannabis with the highest concentrations of
THC.
This means to me that cannabis is not a harmless drug. It is true
that pure cannabis, smoked or eaten in a recipe has never killed anyone
directly, but it can lead to trouble in some individuals especially if mixed
with dangerous drugs like tobacco and alcohol. The long-term exposure
of lung tissue to cannabis smoke is not healthy. This is not a reason to
outlaw the cannabis plant and arrest adults who decide to smoke it but it
does justify a warning.
I recently read an article, about a number of young Israelis who
traveled through India and purchased cannabis from street vendors. Some
of them suffered terrifying hallucinations, and became deathly sick after
they smoked it. Some entered the hospital for treatment of mental illness.
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It is unfortunate the law drives young people to do business with
disreputable characters who are free to lace cannabis with more
dangerous chemicals. If these youngsters had purchased from a licensed
dealer who labeled the purity and potency of the product, these tragedies
would all but disappear.
This is a little known secret, but polls show that 75% of
Americans who smoke pot lose interest and quit by age thirty. If this
is true, pot smoking can become boring and Prohibition can become
pointless.
Comparing Important Drug and Violence Indicators in the US and the
Netherlands
Social Indicator
Years
USA
Lifetime prevalence of marijuana
use (ages 12+)
1998 vs.
1997
33%
Past month prevalence of marijuana
use (ages 12+)
1998 vs.
1997
5%
Lifetime prevalence of heroin use
(ages 12+)
1998 vs.
1997
1.1%
Incarceration Rate per 100,000
population
1997 vs.
1996
645
Per capita spending on drug-related
law enforcement
2002 vs.
1995
$166
Homicide rate per 100,000
population
1995 vs.
1995
8
Netherlands
1
3
11
2
15.6%
2.5%
4
0.3%
6
7
77.3
8
9
$27
10
1.8
12
5
Source: www.leap.cc
Jack Cole
The Dutch were smart and adopted a policy of drug management
rather than copy Richard Nixon's policy of violent repression. Dutch
leaders separated hard drugs from soft drugs and chose not to arrest
cannabis users for possessing small amounts for personal use. Under
International Treaties, marijuana is still against the law in the
Netherlands but the police do not enforce it. Amsterdam allows coffee
shops to sell cannabis and hashish in small quantities to adults over 18.
The result is a dramatic reduction in drug use and the number of arrests.
Clinics staffed with professionals help addicts to wean themselves
off the hard drugs and find jobs.
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Indoor Hydroponic Grow Systems
Remember Bathtub Gin?
182
j
j
H
k
Indoor Hydroponic Grow Systems
183
Drug Prohibition's
Unintended Consequences
• Prohibition has encouraged the use of hard drugs - which are
less detectable, cheaper and more potent than marijuana. In 1970, it cost
$6.00 to get high on heroin. In 1999, it cost $.80. At the same time
marijuana went from $80 a pound to $4000 a pound – ounce for ounce, it
became worth more than gold. Heroin is worth more than uranium
and cocaine is somewhere in between.
• Increased potency has increases its value and ease of
concealment. During alcohol Prohibition, bootleggers manufactured hard
liquor. Today, pot growers develop strains with a higher THC content.
• Glamorization of drug dealers. In places where kids have no
opportunities they see drug dealing as a way to acquire fast cars, hot
babes and a ticket out of the ghetto.
• Racial profiling of minorities. We now have the most racist
laws in America since slavery. African-Americans comprise almost 60%
of the state prison population for drug offences. At the same time, 72%
of drug users are white.
• Disrespect for law enforcement. Undercover agents and
snitches that befriend and betray create an undercurrent of hatred and
paranoia. Undercover narcotics agents rely on busted informants to target
anyone they choose for a home invasion.
• The DEA grew from 2,775 employees in 1972 to 10, 894
employees in 2005. Its budget increased to thirty four times the original
amount in 2006 as the drug trade continued unabated. In December of
2007, the DEA received a White House Christmas present of two billion
dollars from a bankrupt U.S. Treasury already suffocating beneath a nine
trillion dollar debt. More cuts to schools and social services are on the
way.
• Illegal drugs are easier for minors to purchase than beer and
cigarettes, which require ID cards.
• Drug Prohibition finances global terrorism. Ending
Prohibition would allow governments to take back control of the
enormous drug profits.
• Murderers and rapists remain eligible for student loans while
people arrested for smoking cannabis cannot qualify. After the police
catch a family member selling dope, eviction of the entire family,
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confiscation of driver's license, bank accounts, homes and vehicles can
follow.
• Twenty-eight percent of tenth graders in Amsterdam where
possession of a small amount of cannabis is not prosecuted have tried
marijuana - compared with forty-one percent of tenth graders in the
U.S., where it is prosecuted. Dutch children know they can smoke
cannabis legally at eighteen, so the attraction of doing what is forbidden
is weaker or nonexistent. In other words, the Dutch have discovered how
to make cannabis boring. In the U.S. where the forbidden fruit
syndrome is alive and well, the entry level is fourteen. By providing a
safe, legal outlet, for "soft" drugs in coffee shops, the Dutch do not make
contact with criminals who offer hard drugs to their customers. The
Dutch Health Ministers recognize the difference between "soft" and
"hard" drugs when creating drug policy. The result is one-half the use
per capita of soft drugs in the U.S. versus one quarter the use per capita
in the Netherlands. The Dutch spend one sixth of what we spend per
capita on drug related law enforcement. What is wrong with the
Americans?
• Many states have taken away the right to vote from those
caught smoking a joint. In Texas, 31% of black men have lost their right
to vote. We call this disenfranchisement - the removal of citizenship.
• The new privatized prison industry now lobbies Congress to
increase mandatory minimums for drug offenses to keep prisoners
working at jobs for 16 – 20 cents an hour. This type of abuse affects
politicians, law enforcement, lobbyists, lawyers, prison officials,
prisoners and their families while taxpayers foot the bill.
• U.S. drug policy encourages drug overdose deaths. During
alcohol prohibition people died from drinking bathtub gin and bootleg
liquor made from wood alcohol. Today its heroin laced with Fentanyl or
a "hot shot" of concentrated cocaine with no warning labels on the
package and no medical supervision. Drug clinics prevent overdoses.
• The U.S. could purchase the entire opium crop from
Afghanistan farmers for less than the cost of dumping toxic chemicals
into their ecosystem. The developing nations have a chronic shortage of
opium-based pain medication for people dying in agony from cancer and
AIDS. The World Health organization has said that "opiods are
absolutely necessary for treating severe pain." Instead, terrorist
organizations and drug lords purchase and resell the huge opium crop at
enormous profits. When crop dusters spray the poppies farmers switch to
cannabis as a cash crop to help feed their families. The U.S. is the global
force behind Prohibition, which provides a black market income for
many countries.
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• Heroin dealers stay in business because Congress shut down
clinics in 1923 where addicts could receive free maintenance doses.
Switzerland and Holland have reopened clinics around the country to
provide free doses, clean needles and counseling to help their clients beat
their addictions. A personal relationship with the clinic staff that includes
counseling and job support helps people get back on their feet. This is the
most powerful form of therapy known to medicine and the result is
amazing. The Netherlands reports an end to heroin overdoses and the
lowest per capita rate of AIDS and Hepatitis of any European country.
Cocaine use has dropped from 35% to 5%. Drug related crime has
plummeted 60% because users do not have to sell their bodies or steal to
feed their addiction. Homelessness among addicts fell from 12% to zero
and fulltime employment rose to 42 % among participants. Many
participants quit using altogether after their lives became stable. The
drug dealers leave the areas where the clinics open because they
cannot compete and they cannot entice young novices to start using
heroin. The medical model removes the fear of arrest and creates
hope and stability for the addict instead of criminality,
imprisonment, and unsupported discharge back into society. (An
overburdened parole officer cannot provide support to a junkie trying to
get clean.)
• Children killed in crossfires between rival drug gangs and
police officers killed fighting the drug war adds to the damage. In Iran,
3,100 police officers have died in the line of duty. In Mexico, four
thousand police and civilians have died since the U.S. financed
crackdown of 2007. In Thailand, a 2003 anti-drug campaign against
methamphetamine smuggling left 2,500 dead and forced tens of
thousands of addicts into rehabilitation camps. A Junta appointed panel
concluded that half of those slain in a "shoot to kill" policy were innocent
bystanders. An Asia Foundation poll found that 67% of respondents
approved the policy because of the greater damage done to people by the
drugs. Drug traffickers meanwhile move business away from Thailand
into Laos, Cambodia and into Malaysia. Another harsh crackdown is
promised by the Peoples Power Party, which ousted the Military Junta,
which ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in '06 - all because of
drugs. A radio broadcaster and community leader in Thailand says,
"Where there used to be one dealer on the street, now there are
three."
• The sixty-nine billion dollars wasted each year on arrest and
imprisonment could be used to create programs that provide jobs,
housing and medical treatment. Many people use illicit drugs to mask the
pain caused by unemployment, homelessness, sickness, and depression.
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The loss of self-respect and motivation that follows drug addiction is
the greatest obstacle to recovery.
• During the Vietnam War, American soldiers dealt with their
fear of death or injury by smoking marijuana, which is an anti-stress
drug. When Richard Nixon heard about it, he ordered the military to
track down the users (most likely the majority) and force them to quit.
The pressure from the Commander in Chief forced many of the soldiers
to switch to #4-grade heroin, which was easily available and left no
telltale odor. Soldiers smoked it with tobacco or dipped toothpicks in a
solution and chewed on them as they went about their business. Nixon's
moral code exposed countless soldiers to heroin addiction. In the end, the
soldiers who failed the urine test could not leave the country until they
beat their addiction. With this kind of incentive, they found a good
reason to quit. In spite of highly publicized news reports that U.S.
soldiers had returned from the war with drug addictions, only about 5%
continued to use heroin. This small group, no doubt, experienced as little
hope for happiness in this country as they did in Vietnam.
• The "zero tolerance" policy across America offers little incentive
for a jailed drug addict to rebuild a normal life. The DEA and the local
cops are not a health organization. When a prohibition judge offers the
choice of jail or rehab to an adult caught with a baggie of marijuana
which would he or she choose? Rehab of course! When the defendant
reports to rehab he or she will fill a space desperately needed and
requested by hard drug addicts. Rehab is a waste of tax dollars for
responsible, consenting adults who enjoy the pleasure of smoked
marijuana.
• During the "Great Social Experiment" to wipe out hard liquor,
consumption rose dramatically then returned to "normal levels" after it
was repealed. Despite the belief that Prohibition would be good for
society, nature proved the opposite. The urge to drink could not be
banished with church sermons, political speeches, congressional
legislation, or jail sentences. Instead, it unleashed corruption, violence,
and death – the very evils Prohibitionists tried to stop. Without first
reducing or eliminating the demand for a drug, Prohibition only
increased its value. By pitting police against citizens to enforce this noble
policy, well-intentioned do-gooders sowed the seeds of a criminal
empire.
• In 1920, the number of inmates at Sing Sing prison increased by
thirty-six percent. Time magazine reported on March 3, 1923 that "fortyfour percent of the work of the United States District Attorneys was tied
up in alcohol Prohibition cases." In 1932, eighty-thousand people
received convictions for liquor law violations. The express purpose of
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the Volstead Act was to reduce crime and prevent damage to the
nation's health; instead, it had the opposite effect.
• Prohibitionists in the Roaring Twenties believed that alcoholism
caused tuberculosis, venereal disease, delirium tremors, and declining
health in parents, and tuberculosis, rickets, insanity and epilepsy in their
children. The goal was to eliminate these diseases and prevent cirrhosis
of the liver and damage to brain cells. They failed to realize that
distilleries manufactured alcohol from vegetables, fruits and grains,
which the liver could detoxify in moderate amounts. Unfortunately,
irresponsible and greedy bootleggers made alcohol from wood products,
which tasted the same, smelled the same and was cheaper to make.
Thanks to the lack of quality controls and accurate labeling of bottles,
over 10,000 people died from drinking poison. If your vision began to
blur after swallowing wood alcohol, you had a brief opportunity to vomit
up the alcohol before blindness and death followed.
Prohibition's an awful flop
Which cannot stop what it's meant to stop
It's left a trail of graft and slime,
It's filled our land with vice and crime,
It didn't prohibit worth a dime,
But we're for it.
(A Prohibition poem - author unknown.)
www.mediaofprohibition.com
Recently the British Government under Tony Blair tried to copy the
Dutch model of tolerance for soft drugs by downgrading cannabis from a
Class B to a Class C substance. Not surprising, the result was an increase
in the number of emergency room visits and cases of schizophrenia. On
January 11, 2008, The Daily Telegraph reported that the abuse of
cannabis in 2007 increased the number of people requiring medical
treatment by fifty percent. This has put pressure on Gordon Brown's
Labor Party to return cannabis to a Class B status, which can impose a
five-year jail sentence with an unlimited fine on a defendant. Five
hundred people a week sounds like a lot but how many of these people
simply get over the effects and return home, hopefully a little wiser. No
deaths have been reported – only symptoms of schizophrenia which the
drug may have triggered or simply exacerbated. The culprit appears to be
a strain of cannabis called super-skunk, which contains greater
concentrations of cannabinoids in a variety of molecular combinations.
These episodes will most likely continue without a licensed system of
regulation for purity and potency as with beer, wine and spirits.
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Anti-marijuana campaigner Elizabeth Burton-Phillips whose twin
son died of a heroin drug overdose and James Clappison, a conservative
member of the House of Commons hail the new statistics as proof that
marijuana – at least the new super-skunk strain - is a dangerous drug
whose growers and users deserve a jail sentence.
No Remedy
Throughout human history, one truth remains constant. There is no
remedy when people are determined to use drugs – and everyone uses
drugs. No amount of violence, campaign promises, education or
treatment will dissuade human beings from seeking pleasure and altered
states. All the reasons for using drugs would have to disappear first. The
human condition of fear, depression, pain, sorrow, boredom and
curiosity will always lead us back to plants, pills, powders and potions
that alter moods and reduce the pressure of existence.
189
James Anthony
Prosecutor
"When the police department can't put the
drug dealers in jail, they ask me to take the
grandmothers house."
James Anthony has seen firsthand the destructive impact of the "War
on Drugs" on both inner city neighborhoods and on police officers; and
Oakland, California - where he has spent three years as an award
winning Neighborhood Law Corps attorney - is ground zero for that
damage.
James understands that residents of Oakland's poor neighborhoods
are scared of the menacing street dealers and their customers - and of the
random violence that goes along with any black market (such as the one
created by Prohibition three quarters of a century ago). Yet all he has
been able to offer them in his capacity as a drug prosecutor is more
police and more property seizures - a strategy that has failed time and
again.
"I tell people that I can make the problems on their street go away by
moving the dealers down a few blocks into the next neighborhood. Then
the people in that other neighborhood will call me, and I'll go to their
meeting and give them the same speech. In a few years, the problem is
back where it started, - only worse (the occasional bust of a crack house
notwithstanding)."
James has also seen the negative impact of the "War on Drugs" on
the integrity of the police force. Oakland is the location of the notorious
"Riders" gang of four police officers accused of corruption and brutality
in waging the "War on Drugs" (one of whom is still a fugitive from
justice, having fled to Mexico). The riders cost the city of Oakland over
190
$10 million in legal settlements of claims by citizens framed and
brutalized by these so-called drug warriors. And James notes what the
"War on Drugs" has wrought on morality of the officers who haven't
been corrupted. "Most of the officers I work with are bright and goodhearted. They really believe in 'community policing'; but they realize that
it's impossible to get the communities trust when you have to arrest
teenagers and take houses from senior citizens. It's a lose-lose situation.
James is now looking forward to going to those same neighborhood
meetings and engaging the residence in long-range solutions based on a
sensible drug policy.
James received his B.A. in American studies from San Francisco
State University; his Law Degree (J.D.) is from the University of
California at Davis School of Law. He now lives in Oakland, California
with his wife and daughter.
Pubdate: Sun, 28 Oct 2007
Source: Oakland Tribune, The (CA)
Copyright: 2007 MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers
Contact: triblet@angnewspapers.com
Website: http://www.oaklandtribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/314
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n000/a193.html
Author: James Anthony
"With all due respect to Chief Wayne Tucker and the fine officers of
Oakland Police Department, there is no reason to think that the recent
heroin arrests will reduce violence in Oakland. In fact, they will increase
violence.
The reason is simple: demand for heroin will remain strong because
addicts cannot simply decide to stop using. The lower level dealers (who
were not arrested) are even now working hard to re-established
distribution.
Those dealers are now in competition with each other for who will
control that lucrative trade and that competition will not be peaceful. We
can look for this same story again in another two years as we read it two
years ago and two years before that.
The only solution to heroin-related violence is to eliminate the profit
motive by controlling and regulating the supply of heroin to addict's.
James Anthony
Oakland CA
191
Victims of the Drug War
•
Will Foster
Will Foster, a rheumatoid arthritis sufferer and
father of two, was sentenced to 93 years in prison
for charges relating to the 25-plant medical
marijuana garden he grew in a locked room in his
basement.
Weldon Angelos
Twenty-five-year-old Weldon Angelos was
sentenced to 55 years in prison for selling several
hundred dollars' worth of marijuana to a police
informant on three separate occasions ' his first
offenses. Because he had a gun during the
commission of his crimes, though did not use or
brandish it, he received a sentence that even his
judge called "unjust, cruel, and even irrational."
Webster Alexander
In January 2003, 19-year-old Webster Alexander
of Alabama received a 26-year prison sentence
for selling $350 of marijuana within three miles of
a school. A judge later reduced Alexander's
sentence to one year in prison, one year of
probation, and community service, but the initial
26-year sentence made international headlines for its severity.
Unnamed Florida college student
On June 6, 2003, a 19-year-old Alachua County,
Florida, college student was raped by his cellmate as he
served the first of four weekend sentences for delivering
marijuana, a felony offense. The student's cellmate was a
violent offender in jail awaiting trial on sexual battery
charges; the two men shared a cell because of jail
overcrowding.
192
Tyrone Brown
Tyrone Brown served 17 years of a life sentence
for testing positive for marijuana while on probation for
a $2 stickup committed when he was 17. No one
involved was ever able to explain the severe penalty.
The Naulls Family
Ronald Naulls already had two successful
careers when he established the Healing
Nations Collective in Corona in 2006 to save
fellow patients the hours-long drive to Los
Angeles for medicine. Although it was widely
considered a model medical marijuana
dispensary, DEA agents invaded the Naulls
family's home and businesses on July 17,
2007. They arrested Ronald and turned his three young daughters over
to county child protective services, which charged him and his wife with
child endangerment.
•
Suzanne Pfeil
Suzanne Pfeil is a paraplegic who suffers from
severe pain and muscle spasms linked to post-polio
syndrome. On September 5, 2002, more than twenty
armed federal agents raided her medical marijuana
hospice, holding assault rifles to the heads of patients
and their caregivers. When Pfeil was unable to stand,
the agents handcuffed her behind her back and left her
on the bed for several hours.
•
Roni and Charity Bowers
On April 20, 2001, the U.S. Central
Intelligence Agency ordered the Peruvian Air
Force to shoot down a plane suspected of
smuggling drugs out of Peru. The plane was
carrying not drugs but American religious
missionaries Jim and Roni Bowers; Roni and
seven-month-old daughter Charity died in the shooting.
193
•
Robin Prosser
Robin Prosser, of Missoula, Montana, used
medical marijuana to treat an
immunosuppressive disorder similar to lupus.
Despite spending years in a successful fight to
help establish a medical marijuana law in her
state, federal authorities continued interfering
with her access to medicine. On Oct. 18, 2007, after spending months in
excruciating pain and unable to acquire the type and quality of medical
marijuana she needed, Prosser took her own life.
Rhiannon Kephart
In January 2005, 18-year-old Rhiannon Kephart
received second- and third-degree burns to her
chest and stomach when police set off a stun
grenade during a drug raid. Kephart was not a
target of the investigation.
Marijuana arrests for simple possession, no
sale
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The Turning of the Tide
Meet a Few Seasoned Drug Warriors
Jack Cole, Medford MA, USA
State Police Undercover Officer
"You can get over an addiction but you
can never get over a conviction."
Jack Cole knows about the war on drugs
from several perspectives, having retired as a
Detective Lieutenant after a twenty-six year
career with the New Jersey State Police. For
twelve of those years he worked as an
undercover narcotics officer. His
investigations involved street drug users and mid level drug dealers in
New Jersey, to international billion dollar drug trafficking organizations.
Cole ended his undercover career in Boston and New York City, posing
as a fugitive drug dealer wanted for murder. He tracked members of a
terrorist organization that robbed banks, planted bombs in corporate
headquarters, courthouses, police stations, and airplanes and ultimately
murdered a New Jersey state trooper.
After retiring, Cole dealt with the emotional residue left from his
participation in the unjust war on drugs by working to reform current
drug policy. He moved to Boston to continue his education in law
enforcement. He holds a B.A. in Criminal Justice and a Masters degree
in Public Policy. He is currently writing his dissertation for the Public
Policy Ph.D. Program at the University of Massachusetts, his major
focus is on the issues of race and gender bias, brutality and corruption in
law enforcement. Cole believes ending drug prohibition will go a long
way toward correcting those problems.
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A national and international speaker, Cole has taught courses to
police recruits and veteran officers on ethics, integrity, moral decisionmaking, and the detrimental effects of racial profiling. He has spoken
about drug policy in colleges and universities, on many radio programs,
and at conferences across the United States. He has also addressed the
European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, on the subject of US drug
policy.
Cole is passionate in his belief that the drug war is steeped in
racism, that it is needlessly destroying the lives of young people, and
that it is corrupting our police. His discussions give his audience an
alternative perspective of the US war on drugs from the view of a veteran
drug warrior turned against the war.
Jerry Cameron
"I want my old drug
dealers back. They were
much easier to deal with
than their
replacements."
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Jerry Cameron spent a considerable part of his seventeen year law
enforcement career in the quote war on drugs." Not only was he Chief of
two small town departments for a total of eleven years, he is also a
graduate of the 150th Session of the FBI National Academy, the DEA
Basic Drug Enforcement Course, and DEA Advanced Drug Enforcement
Professional Institutes. Cameron Participated As a Front-Line Warrior in
Its Three Enforcement and Consequently Was Recognized Nationally for
Developing a Street Enforcement Technique Known As "Operation
Pressure Point." He has been published in The Police Chief, the Florida
Police Chief, and Law and Order magazines. He was a full-time tackle
key member of the Institute of Police Technology and Management at
the University of North Florida where he taught drug interdiction,
roadside interrogation techniques, police ethics, and management.
Toward the end of his career, Cameron began to question the
efficacy as well as the morality of the "war on drugs." When he began
doing serious research on this subject, he concluded that the "war on
drugs" was not only a total failure but that it had caused tremendous
damage to society. The simple truth was that not one benefit could
be identified and a myriad of unintended destructive consequences
were evident. In fact, the war proved counterproductive to every one
of its stated goals.
Cameron has seen firsthand the devastation of neighborhoods,
perversion of the law enforcement mission, and the squandering of
resources that are the result of prohibition. Today he speaks out against
the decades of failed policy and encourages the "relegalization" of drugs.
He believes that this is the only way to decrease the amount of drugs
falling into the hands of our children, to make room for violent offenders
to serve their full terms in our prisons, and to return law enforcement to
its legitimate function of protecting our citizens.
Cameron provides audiences with a look at the failed "war on drugs"
through the eyes of a front-line veteran. He has presented to audiences
across this country and in England, Scotland, Ireland, the Netherlands,
and Canada. His activities include meeting with members of Congress,
state legislatures, members of parliament, as well as law enforcement
officials and researchers around the world. He has done hundreds of TV,
radio, and newspaper interviews. Debates, panel discussions, and
presentations to civic organizations are always eye-opening experiences
when Chief Cameron uses his vast personal experience and many years
of research to shed new light on the "War on Drugs."
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Howard
Woolridge
"I was part of a process called Civil Asset Forfeiture and let me tell
you I am mightily ashamed of what I did to innocent people."
After three years learning the trade as a cadet, Howard Woolridge
spent twelve years as a road officer and three as a detective for DeWitt
and Bath Townships, near Lansing, Michigan. Like every officer, he
quickly learned that alcohol killed and injured more people than all
the other drugs combined. Soon he became known as "Highway
Howie" for his fierce efforts to combat drunk drivers, earning recognition
from MADD (Mothers against Drunk Drivers).
While he never wavered in his focus, Howard noticed that many of
his colleagues would spend their entire shift looking for a baggie of
pot, while the drunk drivers continued their relentless slaughter.
After retirement, he became a bilingual speaker for the drug policy
reform movement, advocating an end to all drug prohibition. In 2003, he
became a lobbyist in the Texas Legislature where he was part of a team,
which aided the passage of a bill that mandated no jail time for simple
possession of any illegal drug. The Texas law has become a model for
the rest of the United States, saving lives and money.
In 2003 and 2005, Howard rode his horse, "Misty", a total of 6,400
miles from coast to coast in both directions. Riding through twenty-two
states, he delivered the anti-prohibition message to some thirteen million
Americans. Instead of returning to Texas, he now hangs his hat in
Washington DC where he is LEAP's Education Specialist in the United
States Congress.
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Norm Stamper San Juan Islands WA, USA
Seattle Police Chief (Ret.)
"The major police corruption scandals of the last
several decades have had their roots in drug
enforcement."
Norm Stamper, Ph.D. was a police officer for 34 years. He served as
Chief of the Seattle Police Department from 1994 to 2000. In his 28
years with SDPD norm rose quickly through the ranks and as a deputy
chief he served in each of the agency's bureaus. He also served as
Executive Director of Mayor Pete Wilson's Crime Control Commission
for three years. Norm received numerous awards and citations during his
career in San Diego, including the Diogenes Award of the Public
Relations Society of America for his leadership in the wake of the
Rodney King incident and the subsequent Simi Valley trial verdicts.
As Seattle's police chief, Norm led a process of major organizational
restructuring, creating new bureaus of Professional Responsibility,
Community Policing, and Family and Family and Youth Protection.
Within months, his agency had formed one of the country's best
responses to domestic violence.
As a cop dedicated to protect and serve, Norm believes the war on
drugs has done exactly the opposite for people. "Think of this war's real
casualties" norm writes in his new book, Breaking Rank, "tens of
thousands of otherwise innocent Americans incarcerated, many for
20 years, some for life; families ripped apart; drug traffickers and
blameless bystanders shot dead on city streets; narcotics officers
assassinated here and abroad, with prosecutors, judges, and elected
officials in Latin America gunned down for their courageous stands
against the cartels; and all those dollars spent on federal, state, and
local cops, courts, prosecutors, prisons, probation, parole, and peein-the bottle programs. Even federal aid to bribe distant nations to
stop feeding our habits." The war on drugs cost the United States
more than sixty nine billion dollars each year.
Norm was a member of the National Advisory Council on the
Violence against Women Act; Police Executives Research Forum;
199
International Association of Chiefs of Police, and the Major Cities
Chiefs.
Norm earned his bachelor and master's degrees in criminal Justice
administration from San Diego State University and his Ph.D. in
leadership and human behavior from United States International
University. He is a graduate of the FBI's National Executive Institute.
Over the past three decades, he has conducted an organizational
effectiveness and leadership training and consulting for both public and
private organizations throughout North America.
Norm Stamper is the author of Breaking Rank: A Top Cops Exposé
of the Dark Side of American Policing,
Larry Campbell,
Mayor, Senator
Canada
"There is no way in hell that the United
States drug policy is going to be my moral
compass."
Senator Larry Campbell was elected
Mayor of Vancouver, British Columbia in
2002, running on a platform that called for,
among other things, creation of the first
supervised injection sites for drugs in the Western Hemisphere. Born in
nineteen forty eight and raised in Brantford, Ontario Larry worked as a
steel worker in his early years. After moving to Vancouver in 1969, he
worked for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, becoming a member of
the Drug Squad in 1973. He changed careers in 1981 and established the
first Vancouver District Coroner's office. In 1996, Larry was appointed
BC Chief Coroner at a time when drug overdose deaths in the Providence
skyrocketed to as high as 400 deaths per year.
Larry advocated publicly for drug use to be considered a health
issue and has been instrumental in focusing international attention on
that issue. He helped develop the Four-Pillar Approach to Vancouver's
drug crisis – enforcement, treatment, prevention and harm reduction.
Larry retired as BC Chief Coroner in 2000, but continued to
advocate on behalf of the thousands of people suffering from drug
related problems. In 2005, Larry resigned as Vancouver's Mayor and was
appointed to the Canadian Senate.
200
Senator Campbell is one of the great leaders in public office when it
comes to a sane and sensible drug policy. During his first year as mayor,
he set in place the supervised injection sites he had called for, and today
those sites supervised over 600 interjections per day to prevent death
from overdose and the spread of AIDS.
"Is our drug policy failing? Don't ask".
Judge James P. Gray
Cited on numerous occasions for his work in the areas of both social
reform and civic philanthropy, Judge James P. Gray currently presides
over the civil trial calendar for the Superior Court of Orange County,
California.
Judge Gray was appointed to the Santa Anna Municipal Court in
1983 by Governor George Deukmejian, and in 1989, Deukmejian
elevated Gray to his post with the Superior Court.
Throughout his 25 year career within the legal and judicial
community, Jim Gray has not only donated hundreds of hours of
volunteer time to existing community service-oriented activities, he also
has created and implemented a number of innovative programs of his
own, each one a success story in itself.
For instance, it was Jim Gray who introduced Orange County to the
Peer Court System, where juvenile defendants traveled to a school
outside their district to have their actual cases tried by other teenagers.
Gray, who also has worked closely with Mothers Against Drunk
Driving, helped form a panel in 1987 whereby defendants were made to
listen as victims of drunk driving told their heartbreaking stories. This
program is ongoing and has been recognized as one of the most effective
within the MADD organization and the court system. Along these lines
as a member of the California Department of Alcohol and Drug
Program's Drinking Driving Program Advisory Committee, he
recommended treatment programs to combat the DUI problem. To that
end, he helped establish a program whereby youthful offenders of drunk
201
driving laws were sentenced to visit the Western Medical Trauma
Center. These youngsters are made to witness the devastating injuries of
drunk driving victims. This program is also cosponsored by the
Volunteer Center of Orange County where Gray has served as a board
member.
Judge Gray is a cofounder of the "Drive Alive" program and a
contributor to the "Stay in School" and "Blast" programs. He has helped
to found the Association of Former US Attorney's, and the William P.
Gray/Legion Lex Inn of Court in conjunction with USC Law School.
He has won a host of awards over the years, including "Judge of the
Year" and the "Justice Gerald Le Dain Award" for achievements in the
field of law.
Although Judge Gray has championed many causes, none has been
bolder than his work to combat the illegal drug problem in America.
Great continues to mobilize civic leaders, Government officials,
corporations, non-profit organizations, the media, and the public around
the country to join him in exploring alternate solutions to reduce this
chronic problem.
J. Michael Jones, Deputy Chief of
Police
Ranchos de Taos, NM USA
"The war on drugs has undermined
the credibility of law enforcement and
Government in general, as well as an
exacerbating the problem of corruption."
Mike Jones grew up wanting to
serve. He joined the US Marine Corps
straight out of high school. He followed
this up a few years later with more service, this time by way of the
Gainesville, FL, Police Dept. His first assignment was as an undercover
narcotics officer. "As much as I enjoyed the excitement, freedom, and
challenge of undercover work," he recalls, "after a year I had reached the
point where I would look into the mirror and ask myself whose life I was
going to screw up that day. Most of the people I had busted were young
kids who were sharing pot and psychedelics more as a cottage industry
than as true dealers."
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Jones spent most of the next several years as a soldier of one stripe
or another in the "War on Drugs," and from his front-line position, he
could not help but see the futility of the fight. "Pot was going in hundreds
of pounds and in tons instead of lids," he reports, "there was more coke
and heroin -- easier to get and cheaper than before -- and nearly everyone
had guns.... It did not require a rocket scientist to see that there was a
continuous escalation occurring -- and that law enforcement was losing
ground while expending ever-increasing resources acquired by ever more
extravagant promises of results." He was also seeing how the "War on
Drugs" corrupted the warriors. "The siren song of working narcotics was
ruining law-enforcement officers who could have been far more
productive. These people became fanatical in their pursuit of dealers,
using and abusing drug users to achieve their goals. I noticed that federal
agents in particular had virtually no regard for the concepts of personal
dignity and humane treatment. Police agencies were becoming openly
corrupted by the drug trade. There were several incidents in the Miami
area where officers were ripping off dealers for the drugs and the money
-- and sometimes killing the dealers."
Komba Kemoh
Assistant Superintendent of Police - Sierra
Leone
"Legalized regulation of drugs would add to the
foreign exchange earnings of any country"
Komba Kemoh is Assistant Superintendent of Police in
Sierra Leone, a country whose government favors drug prohibition. As in
the US, Komba notes, "my own country has also failed" on this front. He
watched in 2001 as Sierra Leone adopted the Pharmacy and Drugs Act, a
battery of legislation ramping up his country's "War on Drugs." Komba's
13 years of law-enforcement experience has taught him that this new
legislation will also add up to nothing more than "a waste of human and
material resources." Worse, he says, this increased prohibitionism will
simply drive the price of illicit drugs upwards - creating an ever-moredangerous underground market.
What Komba advocates is legalized regulation, plain and simple.
While this would reduce both the crime and the casualties that
prohibition necessitates, from the lack of quality control, Komba knows
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legalization would also help his country's job market. "People would be
gainfully employed in cultivation and marketing," Komba asserts. He
agrees with the World Health Organization and the Senlis Council that
legalizing drugs would allow poor farmers to grow opium poppies and
cannabis, which could be prescribed for use as medicinal purposes in
developing countries, whose people (80 percent of the world's
population) cannot afford expensive pharmaceuticals.
Komba also believes that legalization would help reduce corruption
in the police force. "Police officers, Customs officers, and court officials
who are paid by the government to enforce prohibition are also involved
in trafficking and consumption." For all his government's efforts, Komba
points out that the acreage dedicated to the production of illicit drugs is
generally on the rise. He is in a unique position to understand this
synthesis of factors because, aside from being a police officer who
himself has been involved in drug confiscation (and seen the fruitlessness
of it), he also holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Agriculture.
Upon becoming familiar with LEAP, Komba says, "I had no
alternative but to become a part of it." He now plans to preach
legalization in his country to "the attorney general and minister of
justice, the director of public prosecutions, the inspector general of
police, and all other local and international non-governmental
organizations who stand for prohibition rather than control and
regulation of drugs."
Wes Johnson, Tulsa Ok, USA
Policeman
"Regulate and control all drugs and address the
problems as public health issues."
Wes Johnson began a diverse career in law
enforcement, juvenile offender casework,
alcohol and drug counseling, emergency
medicine, and investigative work after four
years of service in the Air Force. At the same
time, Johnson continued his education, earning a doctorate in law.
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In 1977, Wes began his current career as a trial lawyer. He has tried
federal and state drug cases, as well as civil rights, product liability,
malpractice, and even first-degree murder cases. In 26 years of practice,
Johnson established an impressive record, winning a large majority of his
cases. Throughout those years drug prohibition was continually on
Johnson's mind. He wondered about the hypocrisy of a war on some
drugs; especially why the most dangerous drugs, nicotine and alcohol,
were given legal status while far less dangerous drugs were designated as
illicit. Instead of treating some drug use as a criminal justice issue, he
mused, why not regulate and control all drugs and address the problems
elicited by any of those drugs as public health issues?
The issue wore on him so much that he made taking this message to
civic groups, college and high school students, and church congregations,
throughout Tulsa a personal crusade. Indeed, Johnson's testimony before
the 2001 Unitarian Universalist General Assembly received
overwhelming support, setting the stage for that international
congregation to accept ending the war on drugs as a major platform for
their efforts in social policy work.
In the Sooner State, Wes's Oklahoma home, the Department of
Corrections received $219 million dollars to expand its outrageously
huge prison system even more in 2002. The money had to come from
somewhere so 2000 teachers lost their jobs, causing Wes to wonder,
"Would any economist in the world endorse such a bizarre trade-off in
public funds." Wes also pointed out, "Oklahoma leads not only the
United States but every single country in the world for incarceration of
women."Is this," he asks, "what Oklahomans want to be known for?"
Wes Johnson is a dynamic speaker who offers a different view of the
US policy of a war on drugs.
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Martin L. Haines
Superior Court Judge (Retired),
Moorestown New Jersey, USA
"America's war on drugs is a disaster
based on decades of willful deception."
Retired Superior Court Judge
Martin L. Haines served twelve years as
a judge of the New Jersey Superior
Court. Drugs and the war on drugs have
been compelling subjects of his
concern. "The 'war' targets drug
growers, sellers, buyers and users. Its chief weapon is the criminal law,
vigorously enforced by vast numbers of state and federal agents, police
and prosecutors. It has been a very successful war - gradually destroying
our courts, our cities, our budgets, our morals, and other countries. It has
failed in one respect only: it has had no inhibiting effect upon the traffic
in drugs. Indeed, that traffic, as a direct result of our criminal laws, has
increased. It is time to consider some form of legalization." Judge Haines
believes the war on drugs "can be reversed only by a combination of reeducating the public and honest talk on the part of judicial and other
officials."
In his public presentations for LEAP, Judge Haines offers a farranging and comprehensive critique of the drug war, tracing the failure of
punitive anti-drug policies, and providing forceful arguments for
rethinking those failed policies. He points out the increase in various
categories of drug use following their criminalization, and cites statistics
in other countries showing much lower rates of arrest and drug-related
health problems with more tolerant approaches.
Martin L. Haines has served as the President of the New Jersey State
Bar Association, Chair of the Board of Bar Examiners, and Co-chair of
the Bar's Judicial Administration Committee. He writes newspaper
columns dealing with legal issues for the Asbury Park Press, the
Burlington County Times, the New Jersey Law Journal and the
Philadelphia Inquirer. He taught judicial administration at Rutgers Law
School in Camden, New Jersey, served as Chair of the Governor's
206
Welfare Committee, Trustee for the ACLU/NJ counsel to the Burlington
County Memorial Hospital and as a member of the Mount Holly
Township Council.
Russ Jones
Narcotics Detective
New Braunfels, TX
"Our current
prohibitionist policy has
failed miserably"
Russ Jones has been
involved in the "War on
Drugs" on various fronts
for 30 years. For 10 of
those years Russ worked as
a San Jose, California
narcotics detective. Later
he was assigned to a DEArun task force. As a government intelligence agent, Russ worked in Latin
America observing narcotics trafficking during the Nicaragua-Contra
conflict. In academia, he conducted studies of the impact of drug abuse
on the crime index, wrote training programs for identifying the
psychological and physiological symptoms of narcotics use, and
developed rehabilitation programs designed specifically for the courtmandated client. He has traveled throughout the former Soviet Union and
China to study their drug problems and policies. In the field of drug
rehabilitation, Russ implemented and taught courses for various
California and Texas counties, as well as for privately run programs.
Russ is a court-recognized expert (on both the federal and state levels) in
the field of narcotics enforcement.
His journey to the Soviet Union made it clear to Russ that the war
on drugs could not be won. "Drugs were prevalent even behind the Iron
Curtain," he reports. "If a country, as controlling of its citizens as the
Soviet Union was, still had such a large problem with drug-dealing
on Moscow street corners and meth labs in Leningrad - how could a
207
free society such as ours handle the problem from a law-enforcement
perspective?"
Russ rightly attests that from the advent of drug prohibition in 1914
to the declaration of "War on Drugs" in 1972, to our present-day policies
and tactics, the US government has not significantly reduced the use and
abuse of drugs. Instead we have incarcerated millions, destroyed the lives
of countless youths, while corrupting police, judges, and politicians. "We
are taxing our population at over 69 billion dollars a year to support this
'War on Drugs,'" he notes, "and the result is the enrichment of drug lords,
foreign government officials, and our own government agencies that are
involved in this folly." Russ champions a three-pronged approach to
reform: 1) treat addiction as a health problem - not a crime, 2)
remove the profit motive from the drug trade, and 3) redirect a
portion of the billions of dollars in enforcement costs that ending
prohibition would save toward real, honest education about drugs.
Education programs cut the use of nicotine, the most addictive drug
known to humans, in half in a 20-year period and we did not have to
arrest or imprison anyone to achieve that success.
Fred Martens
"You can get over an addiction but
never a conviction"
Fred Martens served six years as an
undercover narcotics agent in the New
Jersey State Police before moving on to become one of their
administrators. Retiring after a twenty-year career in their narcotics,
organized crime, and intelligence sections, Martens was quickly snapped
up as the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Crime Commission.
There Fred was responsible for the investigations into organized crime
and public corruption. Martens' last investigation was centered on the
then current Attorney General of Pennsylvania (who subsequently pled
guilty to a mail fraud indictment and received 14 months in prison). Fred
then spent some time as the Director of Loss Control/Corporate
Investigations for the Claridge Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, New
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Jersey, before joining Thatcher Associates of New York City, where he
is currently engaged in corporate investigations.
A sought after national and international lecturer, Fred has published
numerous articles on organized crime and police intelligence; including
the text, Police Intelligence in Crime Control (1983). Martens is on the
faculty of The College of New Jersey, where he lectures on the issues of
terrorism and organized crime. Fred holds two Masters Degrees; one in
Sociology from Fordham University, the other in Criminal Justice from
the City University of New York. His baccalaureate degree is from
Farleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey.
Fred believes the "war on drugs" was an unnecessary activity from
its inception and that the war itself has only initiated and expanded
criminal activity throughout the world while destroying countless lives
(lost to prison or death), corrupted innumerable law enforcement
officials, and annually wasted tens of billions of United States taxpayers'
dollars. "Drug Prohibition must be ended before we can ever find an
answer to this calamity of unintended consequences."
Francis Wilkinson, London, England, UK
Chief Constable (Ret.)
"It is the USA that inhibits the UN from
changing its drug conventions, which are the
real barrier to global reform of the law."
Francis Wilkinson held nine different police ranks in England during
his 30-year career, ending as chief constable of Gwent with 1,700
personnel beneath him. He joined law enforcement because he wanted to
make an active, real difference in the world, but at every level of
policing, he gained an increasing understanding of the failure of the "War
on Drugs" mentality he was charged by statute to enforce. Eventually he
came to see that legalization is the most viable option for dealing with
drugs - even the ones he feels cause real damage, such as heroin. "The
more I understood about the social harm of prohibition," he relates, "the
more I favored regulated supply."
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Upon retiring from the police force, Francis felt freer to speak his mind
on the "War on Drugs." In 2001, he appeared on BBC One Wales's Week
In, Week Out, where he advocated legalizing heroin on the Swiss model,
noting that not only would this make things safer for addicts and reduce
street crime, but that finally it would actually reduce use of the drug
itself. His pamphlet, Heroin: The Failure of Prohibition and What to do
Now, sets out and justifies these practical proposals.
Francis points to the criminalization of cannabis as the height of
prohibitionist absurdity and hypocrisy. "Alcohol is much more serious,
much more socially damaging, much more powerful than cannabis,"
which he notes is "very safe." He has gone as far as to submit a
memorandum pushing for cannabis legalization to the Select Committee
on Home Affairs, to whom he gave evidence. The subsequent
Parliamentary Report took on many of his proposals, and the Liberal
Democrat Party has adopted them as party policy. He has published a
pamphlet, The Leaf and the Law, with a regime for change in cannabis
law.
He has been an active member of Transform, a drug-legalization
campaigning organization. He decided to add speaking for LEAP to his
activities because "the US is a very important place to have a constant
debate about legalization from the perspective of people who know what
they are talking about." He wants to see the "War on Drugs" ended in his
country and everywhere because "it increases mass crime, it corrupts
states, and it causes unnecessary deaths of both users and among those in
the business of protecting the people."
Bill Weiland Virginia Beach, VA,
USA
Virginia State Trooper
"A prime example of how law
enforcement horrifically fails to
control drug distribution is the
unabated possession and usage by
jail and prison inmates."
Bill Weiland did not have a
lifelong dream to be a police
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officer; he was just interested in helping people. He worked as a
volunteer firefighter, then as a paramedic. Beginning as a park police
officer, he eventually became a state trooper in Pennsylvania. "I took
great pride in being the type of cop I grew up around-easygoing, helpful,
fatherly," he recalls. "RoboCop I wasn't." Still, he found himself a
warrior in the "War on Drugs," delivering reality lectures to teen tokers
and dumping their pot to the ground in the resort areas of NW
Pennsylvania. Bill has spent the last 24 years in security management,
educating professional security officers to recognize drug issues and
effectively investigate drug-related incidents.
Over time, though, Bill has realized that these actions aren't
confronting real problems in a realistic way. He notes that under our
prohibitionist model, "kids in school buy drugs easier than cigarettes.
Government-funded awareness programs are hardly changing the minds
of young Americans interested in exploration of the drug culture." He
boils down the "War on Drugs" to what it really is: "Attorney General Ed
Meese and Drug Czar Bill Bennett had more of a political agenda than a
realistic grasp of the ebbing tide of drug use in the US. If the US had
invested the money allocated for drug interdiction in the past 20 years
into solid research on realistic, workable drug programs and regulation
along with bolstering the complement of law-enforcement officers
nationwide, we would be significantly safer in our homes and in the
streets. The `War on Drugs' is just another governmental waste of money
and manpower for the graft and greed of a few."
Bill is an accomplished speaker, delivering energetic presentations to
civic clubs and community groups since the 1970's. A Distinguished
Toastmaster, Bill also holds a Bachelor's Degree in Business
Management and an MBA in Training & Development. He hopes that by
speaking for LEAP he can help bring about a new legislative agenda that
by ending the "War on Drugs" will help stamp out a major facet of
organized crime, facilitate conditions that will help addicts get help and
minimize conditions that engender the spreading of diseases such as
HIV/AIDS, and allow law enforcement to spend more resources
targeting crimes like rape, homicide, and child molestation.
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Rusty White, Bridgeport, TX, USA
K-9 Narcotics Dog Trainer, Sniper for DOC.
"Drugs are bad, but the drug war is worse!"
Rusty White saw the impact of drug addiction on
his community and decided to make a difference.
A native of Hamlin, Texas, White grew up as an avid dog lover and
developed an early proficiency with firearms. With this background,
White believed he could be put to good use fighting the War on Drugs.
He became a top K-9 narcotics dog trainer, Track and Attack K-9 trainer
and handler and served as the sniper for the Department of Corrections.
White also worked for 7 years as a corrections officer in an Arizona
maximum-security prison where the hardest of criminals do time and
where safety is always an issue.
After some time, White began to question the way the War on Drugs
was fought. He questioned the arrests of "little guys", when all of the
major suppliers were kingpins. He watched with confusion and dismay
as child molesters and other violent criminals walked out of prison to
make room for an ever-growing population of non-violent drug
offenders. He despised the lies told to kids about drugs and came steadily
to the realization that no matter how many prisons were built, no matter
how many drug dealers were killed, he was not making a difference.
After years of research and review, White realized that the real problem
was PROHIBITION. He left his chosen profession simply because of
what prohibition had done to it.
Rusty now donates his free time to speaking out against the Drug
War. "I'm helping people, and I'm raising two of my grand children.
Ending Prohibition will ultimately provide my grand kids with a
community free of drug pushers and the accompanying violence and
crime."
Eric Sterling, Washington, DC, USA
President of the Criminal Justice Policy
Foundation.
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"The drug war amounts to an American gulag-nothing more-nothing
less."
Eric Sterling, president of The Criminal Justice Policy Foundation,
knows about all there is to know about U.S. drug policy. Eric was
Counsel to the House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary
from 1979 until 1989. On the staff of the Subcommittee on Crime, he
was responsible for drug enforcement, gun control, money laundering,
organized crime, pornography, terrorism, corrections, and military
assistance to law enforcement. He was a principal aide in developing the
Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984, and the Anti-Drug Abuse
Acts of 1986 and 1988. In the 96th Congress, he worked on
comprehensively rewriting the Federal Criminal Code. Eric has traveled
to South America, Europe and across the United States examining, first
hand, the crime problems resulting from drug prohibition.
Mr. Sterling is an advisor the Supreme Court of the United States
and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. He was a participant in the
Conference on World Affairs at the University of Colorado for a decade
and served on the adjunct faculty of American University. His analyses
have been published in law reviews, periodicals and newspapers
throughout the country. Eric served on the Mayor's Advisory Committee
on Drug Abuse in Washington, DC and on the Baltimore Mayor's Task
Force on Drug Policy. Eric was an assistant public defender in Delaware
County, Pennsylvania. He is a liaison to the American Bar Association
Standing Committee on Substance Abuse and a past chair of the
Criminal Justice Committee of the ABA Section of Individual Rights and
Responsibilities.
Mr. Sterling's opinion is regularly reported by the national news
media, where he has been quoted on the front pages of New York Times,
Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, Christian Science
Monitor, and Los Angeles Times. His expert analysis is used by
Members of Congress, legislators, nationally syndicated columnists,
major network television news programs, NPR, Pacifica Radio, 60
Minutes, Nightline, ABC 20/20, PBS Frontline, etc. He has been a guest
on CNN, FOX, COURT TV, Donahue, Gil Gross, Diane Rehm, Jim
Bohannon, Oliver North, etc. Eric has debated U.S. Senator Joseph
Biden, Jr., former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese III; then-DEA
Administrator Robert Bonner; then-U.S. Rep. Bob Barr, and other
officials about the "War on Drugs." In 1999 he was honored with the
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Justice Gerald LeDain Award for Achievement in the Field of Law by
the Drug Policy Foundation.
Mr. Sterling was Editor-in-Chief of NewsBriefs, the newsletter of
the National Drug Strategy Network, for ten years. He helped found and
served on the boards of FAMM‹Families Against Mandatory Minimums,
in 1991, FEAR‹Forfeiture Endangers American Rights, in 1993, the
Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) in 1995, the Voluntary Committee of
Lawyers in 1997. He also serves on the board of the Partnership for
Responsible Drug your Information, Inc., the national board of directors
for Students for Sensible Drug Policy and Law Enforcement Against
Prohibition.
Tony Smith, Langley, BC, Canada
Vancouver police officer
"Organized crime lobbies political representatives to
maintain the status quo."
Tony Smith joined the Vancouver Police in 1973. He
was aware that a year earlier the Le Dain committee recommended to
Parliament that marijuana be legalized and then-Prime Minister Trudeau
let the police know that he supported the recommendation; but Tony felt
that the number of marijuana arrests did not reflect Trudeau's thinking. "I
have no doubt," he says, "and indeed it was probably a consensus
amongst many officers, that the only reason for many of the arrests were
personal, such as the overtime pay for court appearances, which could
exceed regular wages."
He also witnessed that officers who concentrated only on drug issues
created problems, as they were simply not available for the multitude of
other issues needing their attention. He was soon assigned to the Car 86
program, in which officers collaborated with social workers to aid
families in need of intervention. Here he noted that the one factor
wherever violence or extreme hostile behavior was displayed was not
illegal drugs, but alcohol.
Another of Tony's assignments was the Pawnshop Squad, where he
noticed that in most pawnshops 90% of the goods were stolen by addicts
who would quickly take their money to drug dealers waiting just outside
the doors. "Hence, a $200 dollar a day habit cost the public at least
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$2,000 in thefts." As an investigating officer in numerous drug-overdose
deaths, however, Tony witnessed a price far greater. "Having always
been cast as criminals by society," he observes, "they never had a chance
to escape. I am sure their drug suppliers had no motivation to get them
help as their addiction progressed. But maybe if the drugs had been
medically prescribed, counseling would have been available."
Based on his 28 years of service, Tony's greatest concern is the
enormous amount of money pouring into criminal organizations via
prohibitionism. "It would be interesting to track the millions of
dollars contributed to political campaigns from these sources," he
says. Additionally, Tony has had the opportunity to travel the world
extensively, giving him a chance to appreciate the global impact of our
drug policies. "The approach of the DEA in Central and South America
is turning those regions strongly against the US," he relates. "Just look at
the recent elections in Bolivia and US relations with Venezuela. Mexico
is in an even worse state. The government has no control, while drugs
pay the bills for so many, and who fuels the market? The addicts in
Canada and the US." These fruits of the "War on Drugs" are what
prompted Tony to join LEAP.
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Industrial Hemp
The DEA v. Hemp
While farmers in Canada and countries across the globe grow
industrial hemp and sell it to Americans, the DEA stubbornly maintains
its grip on American farmers. For over three hundred years, beginning
with our Founding Fathers, farmers grew industrial hemp in this country
to avoid the cost of importation. It is a cash crop that provides the raw
material for thousands of products; it protects the soil and contains no
smokable psychoactive ingredients. Unfortunately, industrial hemp bears
a remarkable resemblance to the outlawed plant, marijuana. In fact, it is
the same plant, less the THC content.
Because of this resemblance, the DEA does not want the headache of
having to test every sample of "green vegetable matter" for THC or allow
growers to hide their crop in a field of hemp.
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Under marijuana laws, the DEA could arrest George Washington and
charge him with a felony for growing hemp.
U.S. currency contains hemp fiber for durability.
217
Our Constitution is written on hemp paper.
The highest quality cordage is still made from hemp
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13,000 miles and 50 cities on 600 gallons of hemp fuel.
The hemp car has set the world record for hemp fuel.
www.hempcar.com
219
Before and after a harvest
Hemp fiber
220
Bales of unprocessed hemp fiber
Cotton and Hemp Blend
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Men's Hemp Clothing
222
Hemp Gifts
223
Hemp Products
224
Womens Hemp Clothing
225
The Hemp Industries Association
www.hia.org
1. Hemp is among the oldest industries on the planet, going
back more than ten thousand years. The Columbia History of
The World states that the oldest relic of human history is a
bit of hemp fabric dating back to approximately 8,000 B.C.
2. Presidents Washington and Jefferson grew hemp. Americans
were legally bound to grow hemp during the Colonial Era
and early Republic. The Federal Government subsidized
hemp during the Second World War and American farmers
grew about a million acres of hemp as part of that program.
3. Hemp seed is nutritious and contains more essential fatty
acids than any other source, is second only to soybeans in
complete protein but is more digestible by humans. It is high
in B-vitamins, and is a good source of dietary fiber. Hemp
seed is not psychoactive and cannot be used as a drug.
4. The bark of the hemp stalk contains bast fibers, which are
among the Earth's longest natural soft fibers and rich in
cellulose. Hemp is longer, stronger, more absorbent and
more insulative than cotton.
5. According to the Department of Energy, hemp as a biomass
fuel producer requires the least specialized growing and
processing procedures of all hemp products. The
hydrocarbons in hemp can be processed into a wide range of
biomass energy sources, from fuel pellets to liquid fuels and
gas. Development of biofuels could significantly reduce our
consumption of fossil fuels and nuclear power.
6. Hemp can be grown organically. Only eight, out of about
one hundred known pests, cause problems, and hemp is most
often grown without herbicides, fungicides or pesticides.
Hemp is also a natural weed suppressor due to fast growth of
the canopy which cuts out the sunlight.
7. Hemp produces more pulp per acre than timber on a
sustainable basis, and can be used for every quality of paper.
Hemp paper manufacturing reduces waste water
contamination. Hemp's low lignin content reduces the need
for acids used in pulping, and it's creamy color lends itself to
environmentally-friendly bleaching instead of the harsh
chlorine compounds. Bleaching results in less dioxin and
fewer chemical by-products.
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8. Hemp fiber paper resists decomposition, and does not yellow
with age when an acid-free process is used. Hemp paper
more than 1,500 years old has been found. Hemp paper can
also be recycled more times than wood-based paper.
9. Hemp fiberboard produced by Washington State University
was found to be twice as strong as wood-based fiberboard.
No additional resins are required due to naturally-occurring
lignins.
10. Eco-friendly hemp can replace most toxic petrochemical
products. Research is being done to use hemp in
manufacturing biodegradable plastic products: Plant-based
cellophane, recycled plastic mixed with hemp for injectionmolded products, and resins made from the oil, to name a
very few examples. Over two million cars on the road today
have hemp composite parts for door panels, dashboards,
luggage racks, etc.
Countries growing industrial hemp today
Australia Austria Canada Chile China Denmark Finland
France Germany Britain Hungary India Italy Japan
Netherlands New Zealand Poland Romania Russia Slovenia
Spain Switzerland Turkey Ukraine Egypt Korea Portugal
and Thailand.
The United States is the only industrialized nation in the world that does
not acknowledge the value of industrial hemp or permit its production.
The United States granted the first hemp permits in over forty years
to Hawaii for an experimental quarter-acre plot in 1999. The license was
renewed, but the project has since been closed due to DEA stalling
tactics and related funding problems. As a result, manufacturers have
depended on imported hemp products. Twenty-two states have
introduced legislation addressing support, research or cultivation of
hemp with bills or resolutions. The national conference of State
legislators (NCSL) has endorsed industrial hemp for years, to no avail.
Sources:
Chris Conrad, "Hemp: Lifeline to the Future."
Jack Frazier, "The Great American Hemp Industry"
Hemptech, "Industrial Hemp" and "Hemp Horizons"
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Medical Marijuana and the DEA
Peace through Violence
One of the oldest benefits of the cannabis plant is relief for a variety
of health problems such as:
1. Asthma
2. Glaucoma
3. Tumors and cancer cells
4. Nausea relief from chemotherapy and seasickness.
5. Epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, back pain, muscle spasms.
6. Antibiotic CBD disinfectants
7. Arthritis, herpes, cystic fibrosis, and rheumatism.
8. Lung cleaner and expectorant.
9. Sleep and relaxation.
10. Therapeutic emphysema potential.
11. Stress and migraine headache relief.
12. Appetite stimulant.
13. Relief from boredom and depression.
Note: The chemical makeup of each person is different, which means
some people will benefit from cannabinoids and some will not. Keep
in mind that over 100,000 people die each year from a legal drug
overdose while no one dies from an overdose of pot.
The DEA knows of the medical history of marijuana but because of
its sought-after intoxicating quality known as the "high", they do not
want people to use it as a medicine; instead, they do what any
Government agency would do under pressure – they stonewall the issue.
The prohibitionists in office who make and enforce drug laws know
perfectly well that medical marijuana is the first step toward full reinstatement of the cannabis plant. Instead of making use of its medical
qualities, the Justice Department has created a police agency that uses
Gestapo tactics – heavily armed S.W.A.T. teams with flash grenades and
dogs that burst into homes searching for marijuana and other drugs.
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Medical Liquor Permit
Medical Marijuana Permit
229
Medical Marijuana
Medical Marijuana Dispensary
230
Medical Marijuana Dispensary
Indoor Cultivation
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Medical Marijuana Vaporizer
Eliminates the Smoke
$149.00
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Medical Access Denied by Federal Government
DEA raids on dispensaries and Supreme Court decisions against the sick
and the dying stir up protesters in Santa Cruz California.
"This is targeting those who, consistent with California voters, are
trying to provide medicine to people that are terminally ill and in need of
help. For the Federal Government to step on that strikes me as the actions
of bullies.
California Attorney General, Bill Lockyer.
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"Do they want to confront a 70-year-old woman in a wheelchair?
With all of the things the DEA is responsible for, how did this get to be
No.1 on their "to do" list?
Santa Cruz City Attorney John Barisone.
"It is absolutely loathsome to me that federal money, energy and
staff time would be used to harass people like this."
Santa Cruz former mayor Emily Reilly.
"The DEA never told our department about the raid. Our deputies
went there afterwards only to keep peace between protesters and DEA
agents."
Deputy Kim Allyn, Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Department.
Medicine and Politics
The DEA is a United States Department of Justice (DOJ) law
enforcement agency that shares jurisdiction with the FBI enforcing
federal drug policy within US borders. It also has sole responsibility for
prosecuting the global war against people who manufacture, distribute
and use outlawed substances.
The DOJ is a cabinet department that is composed of the most
senior members of the executive branch of the Federal Government.
The executive branch is the Office of the President.
The DEA was established on July1, 1973 by Presidential
Reorganization Plan Number 2, signed by President Nixon. It combined
the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD) and the Office of
Drug Abuse Law Enforcement (ODALE) into a single unit.
The DEA is headed by the Administrator of Drug Enforcement
appointed by the President and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. The
administrator reports to the Attorney General through the Deputy
Attorney General.
The DEA maintains 21 domestic field divisions with 237 field
offices and 80 foreign offices in 58 countries. With an annual budget of
over 42.0 billion dollars, in 2005, it employs over 10,800 people
including over 5,500 Special Agents.
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The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP),
a Cabinet level component of the Executive Office of the President of the
United States was established in 1988 by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act. Its
goal is to establish policies to eradicate illicit drugs and their
consequences in the U.S.
The current director (2008) is John P. Walters nicknamed the drug
Czar.
A New DEA Tactic – Home Invasions
The DEA uses paramilitary S.W.A.T. teams with a warrant from a
federal judge, to smash their way into private homes looking for illegal
drugs. A no-knock warrant allows law enforcement officers to enter a
property without announcing their presence. Its purpose is to prevent the
occupants from getting rid of the evidence before the officers could
secure the premises.
According to Peter Kraska, a criminologist at Eastern Kentucky
University in Richmond, Kentucky, the number of no-knock raids has
increased from 3,000 a year in 1981 to more than 50,000 a year in 2007.
The Cato Institute in Washington, DC reports that 40 innocent
bystanders have died in these raids.
Botched Paramilitary Raids Map
www.cato.org
"If a widespread pattern of knock-and-announce violations were
shown… there would be a reason for grave concern."
___Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy in Hudson v. Michigan
June 15, 2006.
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DEA missions include shock raids on doctors and sick people who are
confined to beds and wheelchairs. Deaths and injuries include both nonviolent drug offenders and police officers
American Gestapo Raids as Entertainment
Spike TV takes a firsthand look at one of the most dangerous jobs
in the world with the drug enforcement administration. Six one-hour
episodes of new unscripted original series "DEA" set to premiere on
Spike TV this spring
Jan 10, 2008 – (Detroit, MI) - Spike TV has ordered six one-hour
episodes of the new original narrative series "DEA" which offers viewers
a never- before-seen look at the inner workings of the Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA). Produced by Al Roker Entertainment Inc. in
association with Size Twelve Productions, "DEA" is slated to premiere
on Spike TV in spring 2008.
"Television viewers will get the same unprecedented access to the
inner workings of the DEA as our camera crews - the raids, the risk and
the danger," said Al Roker, executive producer. "This series is the real
deal, exposing elements of the illegal drug trade that you could not
imagine. When you watch "DEA" you will feel like you have gone
undercover."
Al Roker speaks with a member of the media during a conference
call to announce the new series.
236
In 2005, the DEA seized a reported $1.4 billion in drug trade related
assets and $420 million worth of drugs. However, according to the White
House's Office of Drug Control Policy (ODCP), the total value of all the
illegal drugs sold in the US is as much as $64 billion a year. This makes
the DEA's efforts to intercept the flow of illegal drugs less than one
percent. Furthermore, it is a well-known fact that agents add the weight
of the cutting agents (mannitol, inisitol and lactose) found on the
premises to inflate its street value. The constant media attention to these
obscene profit margins serves its purpose - to attract more entrepreneurs
into the market.
Source; www.dea.com
Because of increased DEA pressure on soft drugs such as marijuana,
an increasing number of dealers are working hard to divert legal
pharmaceuticals into illicit markets. Minors who undergo random drug
tests in schools now find it safer to raid the medicine chest for
prescription pills and cough medicine than to smoke grass and fail a
urine test at school.
Medical Marijuana- Indoor Grow
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Re-legalize All Drugs
The architects and enforcers of the drug war believe that the only
appropriate use of drugs is to relieve pain and to treat illness - which
means that recreational use of drugs is a crime that deserves punishment.
However, this does not discourage narcs and their paid snitches from
enjoying tobacco, alcohol and pharmaceuticals at the end of their day.
Everyone is always at risk for substance abuse because the introduction
of a new chemical into the body produces a change in the body's
chemistry. If the change is positive, tit creates an urge to maintain the
new, improved chemical balance. The goal of Prohibition is to avoid this
chemical dependency and adopt a lifestyle that stimulates the body's own
pleasure chemicals (endorphins).
Through history, the suffering poor and the idle rich were most
susceptible to the lure of recreational drugs - the former to relieve life's
misery and the latter to relieve boredom and increase pleasure.
Because of this eternal element of unfulfillment and the lure of easy
money, any attempt to eradicate these substances results in bloody
reprisals. Mao Zedong temporarily reduced opium addiction in China by
killing drug dealers and forcing millions of Chinese into rehab.
In a democracy, like ours, however it is more difficult to accomplish
this. Many of us still support Thomas Jefferson's fantasy of "inalienable"
rights and the protection of the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable
search and asset seizure that prevents armed drug warriors from busting
into our homes. Nonetheless, the terrifying thought of America becoming
a narco-nation moves us closer to a new world order in which drug
testing of all citizens may one day become law.
The building of an American Gulag at enormous cost to
overburdened taxpayers is creating a discouraged population of
disenfranchised, prison-educated, Americans with a grudge against
society for ruining their lives. This increasing numbers of drug felons
who have nowhere to go except churches and charity organizations to
beg for help – often return to the illicit drug market and prison.
The eternal war on terror and drugs has already depleted federal tax
revenue by two generations and forced Treasury officials to borrow 500
billion from China each year to keep going. How long before deficit
government spending, credit card debt and the subprime mortgage
disaster leads to another worldwide depression? In the future, the DEA's
global enforcement of U.S. drug policy can only increase the likelihood
of hostility from other nations.
238
How to Defeat the Illicit Drug Market
A major goal in the government's war on drugs is to put the
unlicensed dealers out of business. Instead of doing that by making all
drugs legally available through doctors, clinics and licensed outlets,
Ronald Reagan, in 1989, took the unprecedented step of arresting all
Americans, mostly teenagers, for simple possession of small amounts
of schedule 1 drugs. The new policy was a birthday gift to his wife,
Nancy, who believed she could rid the country of drugs by instructing
the children to, "Just say no".
For teens and adults, she had a different message: "You are under
arrest!"
The Reagans believed that if arrested, users would snitch on
dealers to escape a jail sentence. No one had used this degree of terror
before, even during the height of alcohol prohibition, but it sounded like
it might work and Congress quickly approved it.
As we now know, this strategy, like all others, failed to stem the tide.
The Reagan's hoped that home invasions and confiscations would
bring victory over drugs. Instead, it forced the drug culture to find new
ways to avoid detection.
"I don't use drugs. I just hide them where the police and the DEA
can't find them." George Carlin.
Relegalization Will Not End the Drug Problem.
Relegalized regulation of all drugs will not end the damage caused
by drug abuse; it will only reduce the crime and violence caused by
Prohibition. Legalization allows those who want and need help to
receive it without the fear of arrest and imprisonment. Incurable heroin
addicts can receive free maintenance doses of heroin and counseling at
drug clinics. This will reduce or end the need to break into homes or sell
themselves on the street in order to pay for their next fix. We had this
policy in 1914 before moral idealists in Congress decided that 1.3% of
the population was too high a number of addicts to tolerate - and shut
down the clinics. The plan was a simple one. Shut off the legal supply
and addicts would have to quit using. The new policy also forbad the
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doctors to supply their addicted clients with maintenance doses.
Congress now controlled drugs.
Drug warriors resist relegalization because of the message it sends
to children "that drugs are safe." If this is true then why is alcohol and
tobacco sold in grocery stores? Does this send a message to children that
alcohol and tobacco are safe?
If Prohibitionists want a drug-free America, why not outlaw drugpushing ads on television? Why present violent DEA home invasions as
entertainment instead of what it is - the tragic consequences of a failed
government policy?
Decriminalizing Drugs Will Not Work
Many recreational drug users who want to enjoy their drug of choice
without being attacked in their homes by prohibitionists believe that
decriminalization is the answer. Think again, children.
Decriminalization is exactly what drug dealers want because it
allows them to remain in business. This is what Great Britain (UK)
recently tried to do and it backfired on them. It did not end the violence;
it did not generate tax money or eliminate drug overdoses. It did not
channel illicit drugs profits into the legal economy. It did not provide a
licensed outlet for properly labeled drugs or make it more difficult for
children to purchase drugs. It was not a solution.
Only re-legalization and licensed regulation puts the control of
drugs back in the hands of the government and out of the hand of
criminals. If you cause trouble under the influence of any substance, you
can still face arrest by law enforcement. The difference is that the States
and cities make their own rules and the Federal Government stays out of
it.
The Financial Cost of Enforcing Drug Laws
As we are now discovering, the escalating drug war bankrupts state
and local budgets but fails to deter the DEA from its futuristic goal.
Between the unlimited borrowing power of Congress, the printing of
more money and the proceeds from seized money and property, they can
carry on their attacks indefinitely. Marijuana search and destroy teams
that are self-supporting are becoming more popular. Some (not all) antimarijuana eradication teams wait until the grower has built enough cash
and property to make the takedown profitable. The corner rats that
distribute the product are busted and shipped off to the prison-industrial
complex to fill slots in low paying jobs. The gun battle over who controls
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the cleared corners ends in death for the losers and business resumes
once again.
A Rational Approach
Switzerland and the Netherlands respect but do not enforce
international cannabis laws; instead they tolerate "soft drug" use by
adults (not children) and maintain clinics to help those who get into
trouble with "hard drug" addiction. They call this policy lowest priority
or non-enforcement, which the police follow when users are not in
violation of other laws. Legally speaking, prohibition remains on the
books but drug abuse has become a medical, not a criminal issue.
While some American cities like New York are getting tougher,
others have grown weary of arresting citizens for simple possession of
marijuana. San Francisco and Denver city councils and supervisors have
adopted a policy of lowest priority for minor marijuana possession to
reduce their budget deficit. This allows police to concentrate on violent
crime and leave dopers alone unless they cause trouble. Unfortunately, it
does not discourage the local police and DEA agents from continuing to
bring in extra cash with overtime arrests.
Quotes and Comments
"Prohibition... goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to
control man's appetite through legislation and makes a crime of things
that are not even crimes… a prohibition law strikes a blow at the very
principles upon which our government was founded."
Abraham Lincoln, Dec. 1840.
"The ever-changing federal drug laws are nothing more than
arguments and opinions that provide political or moral comfort for those
who make them. There is no doubt they violate the freedoms and rights
given to us by our founding fathers - rights that Congress, the Supreme
Court and the Presidents no longer believe in, or defend."
The only way to stop drug trafficking is to direct the cash flow away
from the dealers and back to a legal market, and the only way to stop the
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craving for a drug is to shut off the receptors for that particular drug –
something we do not yet know how to do.
The Government receives its authority from the people. Without that
support, the government has no authority. When Thomas Jefferson began
to write the Declaration of Independence, he did not choose the words,
"We the government;” he chose the words “We the people." This means I
am the law.
James Wiley
Libertarian philosopher Paul Hager argues that marijuana prohibition
requires a constitutional amendment to become legal - same as alcohol
prohibition.
Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra O'Connor says that the
power to prohibit marijuana belongs to the states and that the
Treasury Department should not abuse its control over interstate
commerce to persecute pot smokers.
Richard Davenport-Hines reports that law enforcement intercepts
less than 30% of smuggled marijuana, which means that more than 70%
of smuggled pot reaches its destination. Other sources say 90%. This
obscene profit margin attracts a steady stream of traffickers who quickly
replace those nabbed by the police.
Law Enforcement against Prohibition, (LEAP) believes that
decriminalization allows the illegal market to flourish, whereas
legalization of all drugs provides the same restrictions as alcohol and
puts traffickers out of business.
***
Thanks to the persistence and violence of the original Marijuana Tax
Act, the United States now has the largest prison population in the
world. By sentencing pot smokers to tent prisons run by private industry,
the Federal Government has created a new underclass of jobseekers
hobbled for a lifetime by a felony conviction.
If the gateway theory were an absolute truth, it should apply to all
drugs. All drugs are gateways, beginning with tobacco and alcohol.
The scarcity of a soft drug such as marijuana will often tempt a pothead
to try whatever else is available.
Proponents of prohibition argue that the war against people who use
drugs is not actually a war, but a containment effort that will continue
242
indefinitely, like mowing a lawn. They believe that without this struggle,
the damage done by illicit drug use would increase exponentially
especially with habitual marijuana smokers that risk not their own health
but also the health of others.
*Average Number of Drug Related Deaths per Year
Tobacco
Alcohol
Legal Drug Overdose
Illegal Drug Overdose
Marijuana
400,000
125,000
100,000
12,000
0
Death related to poor diet and physical inactivity.
365,000
*Source: http://drugwarfacts.org/causes.htm
Notice that illicit drugs cause the least number of deaths!
2006-12-04 – Weird News
Komfie Manalo – All Headline News Correspondent New Delhi, India
(AHN) -- A 120-year-old woman claims that smoking cannabis every
day is her secret to long life.
Fulla Nayak, from India, says she reached the age of 120 by smoking pot
and drinking strong palm wine in her hut everyday.
She is living with her 92-year-old daughter and 72-year-old
grandson.
Nayak told The Sun newspaper, "I don't know how I've survived so
long. Many relatives much younger than me have died."
All » Offbeat » Odd Stuff
Great Story: 75 Year-Old Pot Smoking Atheist
in Perfect Health
Richarddawkins.net — "I will turn 75 years of age in about a week. I
smoked my first marijuana when I was 12 years old, and I have used it
pretty much on again, off again, but at a pretty steady pace. I have grown
243
my own for the past 35 years. That sums up to about 63 years of use.... I
am living, breathing proof that marijuana is not a "dangerous" drug."
News from Our Neighbor to the North
Emily Murphy was Canada's first police magistrate who was well
known for her contributions to women's rights, specifically in regard to
women as "persons" under Canadian law. During her career, she wrote a
book called The Black Candle describing drugs and their attendant social
problems.
In the early 1900's she created an alarming picture of drug use in
Canada based on her understanding of the use and effects of opium,
cocaine, and pharmaceuticals, as well as a new menace called
"marihuana." Her disproportionate contact with Chinese people in her
courtroom and her visits to the opium dens in Vancouver's Chinatown
convinced her to speak out for stricter drug controls.
One chapter called Marahuana – A New Menace, claims that the
three ways out of cannabis addiction are insanity, death, or abstinence.
Emily's book and anti-drug articles that appeared in Maclean's
magazine helped spread the drug panic across the country which antiprohibitionists claim led to marijuana's inclusion in The Criminal Code
of Canada and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. More likely,
recreational cannabis became illegal because of Canadian participation in
international conferences, which put Prohibition on the agenda.
According to one Government official, cannabis became illegal after the
Director of the Federal Division of Narcotic Control returned from the
League of Nations meetings where the delegates held discussions of the
dangers.
Between 1946 and 1961, cannabis accounted for only 2% of all drug
arrests in Canada.
At the present time, more than half of Canadians agree "The use of
marijuana should be legalized."
The current legal status of marijuana in Canada is under dispute.
Superior and appellate courts in Ontario have repeatedly declared
Canada's marijuana laws to be of no force and effect. However, police
and prosecution services and other Canadian jurisdictions still pursue
criminal charges for marijuana possession.
The use of cannabis by the general public is broadly tolerated and a
vigorous campaign to legalize cannabis is underway nationwide. At the
same time, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced a new national
anti-drug strategy. Under a new proposal, dealers would face a one-year
mandatory prison sentence if they are found to be part of an organized
244
gang or if they engage in violence. Dealers would also face a two-year
mandatory jail sentence if they are selling to youth, or dealing drugs near
a school or an area normally frequented by youth. A grow operation of at
least five hundred plants will risk a mandatory two-year jail term.
Maximum penalties for producing cannabis would increase from seven
to fourteen years. If Harper's party receives a majority in the next
election Canada could become another prison Gulag modeled after the
failed American policy.
Source: Wikipedia; Cannabis Legalization in Canada
.
News from Our Neighbor to the South
Mexican President Rejects Congressional
Measure Codifying "Personal Use" Limits For
Cannabis, Other Controlled Substances
May 4, 2006 - Mexico City, Mexico
Mexico City, Mexico: Mexican President Vincente Fox yesterday
rejected legislation that sought to clarify the quantities of cannabis and
other controlled substances that "consumers" may possess without facing
criminal penalties. Fox abruptly abandoned his support for the measure
after US bureaucrats at the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and
the State Department denounced the proposal, saying that it could
promote "drug tourism."
Interpretation: Americans could now flock to Mexico to get "legally"
stoned instead of flying to Amsterdam.
As passed by Congress last Friday, the proposal set specific limits on the
amount of cannabis (five grams) and other drugs allowable under federal
law. Mexican law already exempts criminal penalties for those
individuals who possess minor quantities of illicit substances for
personal use; however, the law fails to define what amounts constitute
personal use. As a result, police and judges must decide on a case-bycase basis whether to punish citizens caught possessing minor amounts
of illicit drugs.
245
The proposed measure also authorized state and local police to enforce
drug trafficking laws. Under current law, only federal police (about five
percent of Mexico's law enforcement personnel) may arrest individuals
suspected of selling drugs.
President Fox rejected the bill on Wednesday, stating, "Congress ...
[needs] ... to make it absolutely clear in our country [that] the possession
of drugs and their consumption [is], and will continue to be, a criminal
offense."
Officials from the US State Department and the White Office of National
Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) had met with Mexico's ambassador
earlier this week urging the President to "review the legislation and to
avoid the perception that drug use would be tolerated in Mexico and to
prevent drug tourism."
Fox said that he would send the bill back to Congress with proposed
amendments.
In recent years, US officials have voiced similar disapproval against
legislative proposals to liberalize marijuana and other illicit drug
possession penalties in Canada, Jamaica, and Australia all of which
eventually stalled due at least in part to US opposition.
For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre, NORML
Executive Director, or Paul Armentano, NORML Senior Policy Analyst,
at (202) 483-5500. ( www.norml.com)
Mexican Forces Clash with Drug Cartel Gunmen in Tijuana
Friday 18 January 2008
New York Times (NY)
James C. McKinley Jr. - author
Reynosa, Mexico - drug cartel gunmen and Government forces
fought a three-hour battle Thursday in Tijuana, the latest in a series of
violent clashes in border towns where President Felipe Calderon has
deployed the Mexican army and federal agents to dismantle drug cartels.
246
One gunman was killed and four police officers were wounded in the
fight, state authorities said in a bulletin Thursday night. The police later
discovered at least six other bodies in the house where the gunmen had
made a stand against the Government, state officials said. Some of the
dead appeared to be kidnapping victims who had been slain, they said.
During the fighting the sound of machine guns and grenades
terrorized the city, as residents hid in their houses and soldiers evacuated
dozens of children from a nearby preschool, according to reports from
Mexican newspapers, television networks and radio stations.
As Mr. Calderon has put more pressure on them, the drug cartels
have lashed back at the Government. Gunmen assassinated three police
commanders in Tijuana this week and killed for federal agents last week
in the state of Tamaulipas and Michoacan.
According to reporters for Radio Red FM, the besieged gunmen
fought with large caliber machine guns and rocket propelled grenades,
even shooting at a helicopter overhead.
The shootout occurred in the same neighborhood where gunmen
ambushed and killed two senior state police officials in their car on
Tuesday just after midnight. Hours later, gunmen broke into the home of
a police commander, killing him, his wife and his twelve-year-old
daughter.
The authorities said that in the hours before the gun battle, drug
dealers had been issuing death threats to the city's police chief, Julian
Leyzaola Perez, over police radio frequencies.
Last week, a similar battle between drug dealers in Government
forces broke out in Rio Bravo, Mexico, just south of the Texas town of
McAllen. In that fight, officials said, three gunmen were killed and ten
on the Government side were wounded.
President Bush offered President Calderon 1.4 million dollars to
launch the attack.
The Future of Prohibition
Proponents
With the proceeds from catching pot growers and seizing their
assets, marijuana eradication teams can purchase low cost aerial drones
(hand launch remote controlled planes with cameras) to spot grow-ops in
state and national forests. They can also hire pi's (paid informants) to
keep an eye out for drug activity in the neighborhoods. Drug tip hotlines
in offer citizens a chance to notify the police of drug activity.
247
A simple traffic stop can lead to a car search and a drug test. Some
police departments now carry a small device that can check pupil
dilation.
In the future, inspectors may acquire warrants to test wastewater
from a private residence. This could establish probable cause the same as
digging through trash will allow them to build a case against a suspect. If
drug testing could expand nationwide and include DNA testing, illicit
drug users would have no choice but to quit!
Plant geneticists may find a way to remove the THC molecule from
the cannabis gene pool. They have already found a way to track the
general location where the plants grew.
Power companies notify inspectors when the sodium mercury bulbs
used for indoor grow ops draws huge amounts of electricity. The
inspectors can then investigate the cause.
A K-9 (drug sniffing dog) in the hands of an experienced handler can
randomly visit neighborhoods and circle private residences to alert on the
"skunk" odor of marijuana.
Opponents
The amount of damage done to public land from stream diversion,
fertilizers, pesticides, trash and human waste created by a grow-op is on
the increase. Even when drones locate the grows, the effort required to
clean up the mess is greater than what government budgets can afford. It
would make more sense for the state and local authorities to license
growers and retailers and use the tax revenue for damage control.
The paid snitches that inform on people who are not causing any
trouble remind me of the fear caused by the KGB in Soviet Russia and
the Gestapo in Nazi Germany. As a child, I remember the days when
police respected people's privacy and people in return respected the
police as protectors and helpers. Now, thanks to Nixon's hatred of
hippies and war protesters, everyone is a suspect and the police are the
enemy. Is this what we want for America?
There is truly no justification for a random traffic stop by a police
officer. A motorist must give the officer a good reason like expired tags,
a broken taillight or erratic driving to trigger a stop. Do not drive under
the influence or keep illegal drugs in your vehicle or you will be nailed –
sooner or later.
Testing the wastewater from private home to see who is using illegal
substances is an effective way for lawmakers to demolish whatever
248
privacy from the police we have left. If there is no more privacy and
freedom of choice then stop teaching it in civics classes.
Botanists may one day re-engineer plants to produce the
cannabinoids found in marijuana. This would certainly confound the
drug police but it would not help a smoker beat the inevitable drug test.
The high intensity lamps used to grow cannabis indoors are more
and more a dead giveaway to the narcs plus a fire hazard. Even so, low
wattage fluorescent and LED lights are beginning to make it harder to
find indoor grows. The black mold produced by hydroponic delivery
systems, the dangerous wiring, and the bypassing of the electric meter
are all unwanted consequences of Prohibition.
The use of dogs to detect odors gives an unfair advantage to the
police. A K-9 handler can easily "false alert" to trigger an unwarranted
search of people, cars or property.
249
Timetables
1914 Congress passes the Harrison Narcotics Act, which cuts off the
legal supply of cocaine and heroin to addicts.
1920 Congress passes the Volstead Act, which cut off the legal
supply of distilled spirits.
1933 Congress repeals the Volstead Act and returns control of the
manufacture and distribution of distilled spirits to the states.
1937 Congress passes the Marijuana Tax Act, which outlaws the
cannabis/marijuana/hemp plant.
1951, the Boggs Act dramatically increases penalties for trafficking
and possession marijuana based on the belief that the active ingredient,
THC, causes insanity, criminality, and death.
1956 the Daniel Act increased penalties by a factor of eight over the
Boggs Act based on the belief that marijuana use leads to heroin (the
gateway theory).
1961 the UN Treaty 406 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs
outlaws cannabis use and cultivation worldwide. The agreement sought
to eradicate cannabis from the earth within thirty years – with Anslinger
as the U.S. representative pushing the other representatives hard for
passage.
1969 Richard Nixon launches his historic War on Drugs with the
Controlled Substances Act and convinces Congress to use tax money to
build the largest prison complex in history.
1973 the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) replaces the
Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs
1976 Gerald Ford illegally bans medical research on cannabis.
1983 The Federal Government illegally orders American universities
to destroy all 1966-76 research papers on cannabis.
1986 Congress passes mandatory minimum sentencing laws,
which forces state and local judges to deliver fixed sentences to
individuals convicted of possession or sale of marijuana. The accused
may receive a reduced sentence only if he or she provides information
that leads to the arrest of other offenders.
1988 the UN passes the Convention against Illicit Traffic in
Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, which increases the
penalties for recreational use of cannabis for all of humanity.
1988 US DEA chief administrative law judge, Francis Young ruled
that "marijuana in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically
active substances known to man."
250
1989 Presidents Reagan and Bush declare all out war on
cannabis that includes urine-testing, seizure of assets and private
property, and sentencing of convicted pot smokers to prison camps. The
crackdown increases the value of cannabis per ounce beyond that of
gold, and organized crime moves in to take control of the world market.
At the same time, Ronald Reagan declares victory in the war on drugs.
1990 Jack Herer publishes The Emperor Wears No Clothes, the
definitive history of cannabis and the conspiracy by American
prohibitionists and industrialists to eradicate it from the earth.
1992 Bill Clinton admits he smoked marijuana but did not inhale. In
spite of this disclaimer, the active ingredient, THC, did pass through the
lining of his mouth and into his body. We call this method of absorption,
mouth smoking, which is a felony. The Clinton administration oversees
the arrest of one and a half million Americans, most on simple
possession.
1996 The FBI threatens doctors with prosecution if they prescribe
cannabis for seriously ill patients.
1997 the Drug Czar, Barry McCaffrey, threatens to prosecute
doctors in California and Arizona who prescribe or supply cannabis.
1998 The City of Oakland, California defies federal law by swearing
in medical marijuana suppliers as deputies, to protect them from arrest by
state and local police.
2003 The DEA arrests deputized medical marijuana provider, Ed
Rosenthal. The jurors become angry after they find him guilty, because
the judge failed to inform them during the trial that Oakland authorities
had deputized Rosenthal. The judge awarded Ed one day in jail. In 2007,
the DEA re-prosecutes Ed on the same charges with the same results.
2006 The FDA announces, "Marijuana is the equivalent of heroin
and cocaine," and denies that marijuana has any medical benefit
whatsoever.
2006 Mexico's Congress tries to legalize small amounts of cannabis
for personal use to reduce drug violence but abandons the effort under
pressure from the US. DEA statistics reveal that cannabis is America's
biggest cash crop.
2007 San Francisco and Denver make simple possession of small
amounts of marijuana a lowest priority. Police respond by increasing the
number of arrests.
2007 Police make 800,000 arrests nationwide for marijuana
violations - an all time record.
2008 Marc Emery, a Canadian marijuana seed vender and activist
faces extradition to the United States for selling three million seeds to
251
American customers. The DEA sponsored raid violates Canadian
sovereignty.
2008 President George W. Bush persuades Congress to provide 1.4
million dollars of tax money to Mexico's President, Felipe Calderon to
attack drug cartels with the Mexican army. More than four thousand lives
are lost in drug violence in 2007 and 2008.
2008 The DEA sends threatening letters to property owners of
California MCD's (Medical Cannabis Dispensaries) promising to
prosecute them and confiscate their property if they do not evict their
tenants.
The Human Experience with Alcohol
www.erowid.org
(BCE - Before the Christian era)
6000-4000 BCE - The oldest archaeological evidence of wine is residue
on the inside of jars in northern Iran.
3000-2000 BCE - wine production and trade become an important part
of Mediterranean commerce and culture.
31 - Jesus uses the power of God to turn water into wine at a wedding.
1100 - The medical school at Salerno, Italy documents the distillation of
alcohol. The participants name the product 'spirits' in reference to it
being the extracted spirit of the wine.
1000-1500 - distillation of grain alcohol in Europe follows the
distillation of wine.
1525-1550 - In England, the excessive use of distilled spirits first
becomes apparent.
1500's - The term "alcohol" is now used specifically to refer to distilled
spirits rather than its previous general meaning of any product of the
process of vaporizing and condensing.
1550 – 1575 - Thomas Nash describes widespread drunkenness in
Elizabethan England; drunkenness is mentioned for the first time as a
crime, and prevented statutes multiply.
1700's - Massachusetts laws attempt to control widespread drunkenness,
particularly from home brews - and to supervise taverns.
1800's - Development of the continuous still makes the process of
alcohol distillation cheaper and easier to control.
1860 – 1,138 - Legal alcohol distilleries were operating in the United
States producing 88 million gallons of liquor per year.
252
1906 – Congress passes the Pure Food and Drug Act, regulating the
labeling of products containing alcohol, opiates, cocaine, and cannabis,
among others. This is a safety measure to protect the consumer.
1919, Jan 16 – In response to pressure from the Anti-saloon League and
the Woman's Christian Temperance Movement, Congress passes the
Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
1919, Oct. – Congress passes the Volstead Act over President Wilson's
veto which clarifies and broadens the base of the Eighteenth Amendment
and defines methods of enforcement. It specifies that production and
sales of alcoholic beverages is illegal except for medical or religious
purposes. Consumption and/or possession of medical or religious
alcohol with a permit was permitted only in one's own home.
1920 – 1933 The illicit alcohol trade booms in the United States.
1933 March 22 – Nine days after his inauguration, President Roosevelt
proposes a modification to the Volstead Act which legalizes beverages
containing not more than 3.2 percent alcohol. (Beer and wine).
1933, Dec 5 – Congress repeals the prohibition of alcohol with the
passage of the 21st Amendment, effective immediately.
1934 – 1970 - The excise tax on alcohol begins to climb. In 1934, the tax
was $2.00 per gallon; in 1970, it was $10.50 per gallon. At this point, a
moonshiner could produce and sell a gallon of alcohol for half the
amount of the tax money.
1978, Oct 14 – US President Jimmy Carter signs a bill legalizing home
brewing of beer for the first time since Prohibition.
The Human Experience with the Opium Poppy
www.erowid.org
3400 BCE Opium Poppy is cultivated in lower Mesopotamia called Hul
Gil, or "Joy Plant" by these Sumerians.
1300 BCE Egyptians cultivate opium poppies during the reign of the
Thutmose IV, Akhenaton and King Tutankhamen. They reportedly trade
the item across the Mediterranean into Greece and Europe.
1100 BCE On the island of Cyprus the "Peoples of the Sea" craft
surgical-quality knives to harvest opium, which they would cultivate,
trade and smoke.
330 BCE Alexander the great introduces opium of the people of Persia
and India.
300 BCE Opium used by Arabs, Greeks, and Romans as a sedative and a
soporific (sleeping aid.)
160-180 Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome, eventually took opium to
sleep and to cope with the pressure of military campaigns.
253
1000 In India, opium is cultivated, eaten, and drunk by all classes as a
household remedy. It is used by rulers as an indulgence, and given to
soldiers to increase their courage. In China, the medicinal use of opium
poppy seeds is widespread.
1300 Opium disappears from European historical record do to the Holy
Inquisition. "In the eyes of the Inquisition, anything from the east was
linked to the Devil."
1500 In China the medicinal use of pure opium is fully established.
Native opium is manufactured, but recreational use is still limited.
1500 – 1600 "Syrup of poppy" and other poppy preparations are
commonly prepared and used medicinally by monastic communities that
devoted major efforts to the production and improvement of herbal
medicines.
1729 - Reports reach Peking of the evil of opium smoking (shriveling of
the features and early deaths), in Formosa and Fukien. Emperor Yung
Chen prohibits the sale of opium and the operation of smoking houses.
1750 -The British East India Company assumes control of Bengal and
Bihar, the opium growing districts of eastern India. British shipping
dominates the Bengal opium trade out of Calcutta.
1796 - Alarmed by increasing use, the Emperor of China issues and edict
forbidding importation of opium, as well as export of Chinese silver used
as a medium of exchange. Legitimate trade is limited to barter.
Nonetheless, the illegal purchases of opium with silver continues.
1799 - A strong edict by authorities in Canton, supporting the Emperor's
decree of 1796, forbids opium trade at that port. A concurrent drive
against native poppy growing is initiated. Opium becomes an illicit
commodity.
1800 – 1820 Domestic opium cultivation is encouraged by increased
opium use, along with rising prices and problems with adulteration. It
declines after the eighteen twenties, but there does not appear to have
been any call for controls. Patent medicines and opium preparations such
as Dover's powder were readily available without restrictions. Despite
some well-known cases among the nineteenth century English literary
and creative personalities – Thomas D. Quincey, Byron, Shelley,
Coleridge, and Dickens, - recreational use was limited and there is no
evidence that use was so excessive ass to be a medical or social concern.
1803 - Morphine is isolated from poppies by a twenty-year-old German
pharmacist, Frederick Wilhelm Adam Serturner. This may have been the
first plant alkaloid ever isolated and it set off a firestorm of research into
plant alkaloids. Within half a century, dozens of alkaloids such as
254
atropine, caffeine, cocaine, and quinine had been isolated from other
plants and used in precisely measured dosages for the first time.
1853 - Charles Gabriel Pravaz a French surgeon and Alexander Wood a
Scottish physician simultaneously invent hypothermic needle syringe is
with a point buying enough to pierce the skin. It is first used to inject
morphine intravenously.
1861 - Commercially manufactured hypothermic syringes become
available in Europe and America.
1850-1865 Tens of thousands of Chinese laborers immigrate to the US
in space in a period of labor shortage, bringing the habit of opium
smoking with them.
1874 – An English chemist, C.R. Alder Wright synthesizes heroin at St.
Mary's Hospital in London. No one realized its potential.
1878 - San Francisco passes an ordinance making it a misdemeanor to
visit an opium den. Importation, sales and possession of opium remain
legal.
1887 - The importation of opium by Chinese (but not Americans) is
forbidden.
1897 – Felix Hoffmann at Bayer Pharmaceutical synthesizes heroin. The
Bayer Company immediately recognizes its potential and begins
marketing it heavily for the treatment of a variety of respiratory ailments.
One year after launching its sales program, they are exporting heroin to
twenty-three countries.
1900 -1906 - 27% of the adult male population of China is addicted to
opium. This is about 3.5% of the total population of the country. Doctors
and pharmacist in the U.S. begin to notice that patients are consuming
large amounts of cough medicines that contain heroin.
1906 - The Pure Food and Drug Act is passed, regulating the labeling of
products containing alcohol, opiates, cocaine, and Canada's, among
others.
1911 - British Pharmaceutical Codex notes that heroin is as addictive as
morphine.
1913 - Bayer stops producing heroin.
1914 - Congress passes the Harrison Narcotics Act which regulates and
imposes a tax upon the sale of opium, heroin and cocaine for the first
time.
1924 - The Heroin Act passes, making manufacture and possession of
heroin illegal in the U.S.
1942 - The Opium Poppy Control Act prohibits the possession or
growing of the opium poppy without a license.
255
1965- 1970 - U.S. involvement in Vietnam is blamed for the surge in
illegal heroin being smuggled into the States.
1971 – Between 10-15% of American servicemen in Vietnam are
addicted to heroin.
The Human Experience with the Coca Bush
www.erowid.org
c. 3000 BCE Chewing the leaves of the coca bush is practiced
throughout South America. Coca is believed to be a gift from God.
1500's Coca plantations are operated by the Incas in Peru. When the
Spanish take over the land, Spanish tax laws are revised to allow
the new landowners to make their tax payments in coca leaves.
1553 Pizarro invades and destroys the Inca Empire. Coca production in
Peru expands quickly causing a glut of leaf on the market, which
in turn precipitate a drop in the price of coca. Nicolas Monardes
reports an increase in coca chewing particularly among lower
classes of Andean Indians, as traditional controls disappear.
1575 Forced laborers working in the Spanish silver mines were kept
well supplied with Coca leaves. Roughly 8% of the Europeans
living in Peru were involved in the Coca trade.
1855 Cocaine first extracted from coca leaves.
1859 Cocaine was first isolated as the active ingredient in the Coca
plant by Albert Niemann of the University of Gottigen in
Germany.
1862 Merck Laboratories produces a quarter pound of cocaine.
1884 Cocaine's used as a local anesthetic in the eye surgery is
popularized.
1884 After reading a study published in a German medical journal, a
young Sigmund Freud recommends the use of cocaine to treat a
variety of conditions including morphine addiction.
1886 Merck produces 158,352 pounds of cocaine. John Pemberton
introduces a beverage called Coca-Cola containing cocaine laced
syrup and caffeine. Park Davis starts to manufacture refined
cocaine.
1901 The Coca-Cola Company removes coca from their formula.
1905 Snorting cocaine becomes popular.
1906 Congress passes the pure food and drug act.
1910 the first cases of nasal damage from cocaine snorting up here in
medical literature
1912 The US Government reports 5,000 cocaine related fatalities in one
year.
256
1914 Congress passes the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act.
1930's Japan is the world's leading cocaine producer followed by the
United States, Germany, UK, and France.
1920-1970 Cocaine use subsides in the U.S.
1970 October, 27 Congress passes The Comprehensive Drug Abuse
Prevention and Control Act. The second part is the Controlled
Substance Act (CSA), which defines a scheduling system for
drugs. It places most of the known hallucinogens (LSD,
psilocybin, psilocin, mescaline, peyote, cannabis, and MDA –
Ecstasy) in Schedule 1. It places coca, cocaine and injectable
methamphetamine in Schedule II. Other amphetamines and
stimulants, including non-injectable methamphetamine are placed
in Schedule III.
c. 1976 A concentrated form of cocaine for smoking called freebasing
becomes glamorized by Hollywood media
1981 The wholesale cost of 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) of cocaine in the
U.S. is $55,000.
1984 The wholesale cost drops to $25,000.
The Human Experience with Peyote Cactus
www.erowid.org
c. 3700 BCE Native Americans and other Rio Grande (Shumla Caves)
area collected peyote.
1000 BCE Peyote used ceremonially by indigenous cultures in Texas
and Mexico.
1521 June 15, Europeans in Mexico forbid the use of hallucinogenic
mushrooms and peyote by the Indians. Catholic priests punish the
use of Entheogens by native people.
1550 -1750 The Spaniards make a determined effort to stamp out peyote
practices amongst native Mexicans. I peyote use is denounced by
European Catholics as an act of witchcraft and superstition
because it was for "purposes of detecting facts, of divining other
happenings in foretelling future events." Its use was the equating
with cannibalism and some Catholic texts.
1887 Park Davis & Co. market dried peyote buttons.
1890's North American Indians brought back knowledge of peyote from
raids on Mexico. Along with the Ghost Dance, peyote use spread
quickly among the Indian tribes of America. Indian prophets like
Quanah Parker added Christianity to traditional beliefs and
formed the basis of the peyote ritual practiced most commonly
today either native American church.
257
1897 Nov. 23 German chemist Arthur Heffter is the first to isolate and
identify Mescaline, the active ingredient in the peyote cactus
Lophophora williamsii.
1902 Popular Science Monthly publishes an article on peyote titled;
"Mescal; A Study of a Divine Plant".
1918 James Mooney, a Smithsonian Institute archaeologist who traveled
through Oklahoma in 1891 participating in various peyote
ceremonies, became convinced of the need to unite the Indians and
protect their legal right to worship with peyote. He called a
meeting of all the great roadmen and wrote the charter for and
incorporated The Native American Church.
1930 A dozen states had outlawed possession of peyote, largely as an
anti-native American statement.
1945 Oct. US Navy Technical Mission reports on mescaline experiments
at the Nazi Dachau concentration camp.
1947 The U.S. Navy conducts mescaline studies under the auspices of
"Project Chatter."
1953 Aldous Huxley tries mescaline (400 mg) for the first time under the
supervision of Dr. Humphrey Osmond. During the experience, he
commented, "This is how one ought to see, how things really are."
1954 Aldous Huxley publishes The Doors of Perception which describes
his experience.
1960 Arizona judge Yale McFate ruled that Native Americans are
guaranteed access to the Peyote sacrament under the first and
fourteenth amendments.
1960 Carlos Castaneda, a UCLA anthropology student meets A Yaqui
Shaman named Don Juan Matus who introduces him to a preColumbian body of knowledge. His first two books the Teachings
of Don Juan: a Yaqui Way of knowledge (1968) and a Separate
Reality ((1971) describe his experiences with peyote, mushrooms
and datura. In later works he abandons the use of entheogens goes
on to become a man of knowledge. Castaneda describes man as a
cocoon of light fibers for those who can "see."
1967 The Federal Government bans peyote.
1970, Oct 27. Congress passes The Comprehensive Drug Abuse
Prevention and Control Act. The lawmakers place non-addictive
peyote in schedule 1, next to heroin.
1973 Mar 5 Time magazine runs a cover article on Carlos Castaneda.
1991 Alexander and Ann Shulgin publish PIHKAL, documenting over
250 phenethylamines, including MDMA (Ecstasy), mescaline,
2C-B, 2C-T-2, and many others.
258
1998 April 27 Carlos Castaneda dies of liver cancer. He left his 30
million dollar estate in Brentwood, California to Cleargreen to
manage after his death. A Culver City mortuary cremated his body
and his remains were sent to Mexico. Strangely, the DVD
Castaneda: The Enigma of a Sorcerer shows his (or someone's)
body being buried in the desert at the end of the film.
The remains of Patricia Park referred to by Castaneda as the Blue
Scout were found in 2004 near where her abandoned car had been
discovered a few weeks after Castaneda's death in 1998, on the
edge of Death Valley.
The Human Experience with Magic Mushrooms
www.erowid.org
1000-500 BCE Central American cultures build temples to mushroom
gods and carve "mushroom stones" found in Mexico and
Guatemala.
1300 – 1500 Vienna Codex depicts the ritual use of mushrooms by the
Mixtec gods, showing Piltzintecuhtli and seven other gods holding
mushrooms in their hands. These were most likely psilocybin
containing mushrooms.
1521 June, 15 Europeans in Mexico forbid the use of "non-alcoholic"
intoxicants. Catholic priests begin to punish the native people who
disobey the law.
1560 Spanish priest Bernardino de Sahagun writes in his Florentine
Codex about the use of peyote and hallucinogenic teonancatl
mushrooms by the Aztecs. He estimates that peyote has been in
use since at least 300 B.C.
1600 Xochipilli statue carved. Aztec statue depicts the Prince of Flowers
decorated with six psychoactive plants: mushrooms, tobacco,
morning glory, sinicuuchi, cacahuaxachitl, and one left
unidentified.
1799 Oct 3 First documented psychedelic mushroom
experience/ingestion takes place in London.
1938 Schultes and Reko travel to Mexico to collect specimens of several
psychoactive mushroom species which they deposit in the Harvard
herbarium.
1939 Richard Evans Schultes publishes a paper describing teonanacatl
as a specific psilocybin-containing mushroom.
1955 Jun 29 R Gordon Wasson participates in a mushroom velada led
by Maria Sabina.
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1957 May 13 Wasson publishes an article about psychoactive
mushrooms in Life magazine, the first popular media coverage of
their existence.
1958 Albert Hoffman, a Swiss chemist, working at Sandoz
Pharmaceutical in Switzerland isolates psilocybin from
psychoactive mushrooms.
1960 Sandoz Pharmaceutical begins reducing psilocybin pills. They
contain 2 mg. of psilocybin per small pink pill.
1960 Aug Timothy Leary ingests his first magic mushrooms in
Cuernavaca, Mexico. In October, he tries pure psilocybin.
1960-61 Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert begin a series of
experiments with Harvard graduate students, using pure
psilocybin.
1962 April Twenty divinity students at Boston University participate in
a psilocybin ritual/experiment on Good Friday.
1963 Harvard fires Leary and Alpert from their academic positions at
least in part, for their continued experiments with students and
psychedelics.
1968 Oct 24 Possession of psilocybin and psilocin becoming illegal in
the United States (Schedule 1 next to heroin.)
1960 -1977 Researchers study psilocybin as psychotherapeutic medicine
through the sixties and seventies. FDA-approved research with humans
ends in 1977, but resumed in the late 1990's.
2006 Survey results published in neurology show that both psilocybincontaining mushrooms and LSD may reduce severity and
frequency of cluster headaches and help reduce alcoholism.
Research shows magic mushrooms can induce mystical
experiences.
The Human Experience with LSD
www.erowid.org
1938 Nov 16 Albert Hoffman, a Swiss chemist working for Sandoz
Pharmaceutical in Basel, Switzerland, is the first to synthesize
Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD-25), a semi-pathetic derivative
of ergot alkaloids found in a fungus that grow on rye grain. At the
time, he was looking for a blood stimulant.
1943 Apr 16 Hoffman accidentally comes in contact with a small
amount of LSD. This is the first human experience with pure LSD25. He reports seeing "an uninterrupted stream of fantastic
pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscope-like play
of colors." The experience lasted just over two hours.
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1951 Al Hubbard tries LSD then goes on to introduce more than 6000
more people to the experience including scientists, politicians,
intelligence officials, diplomats, and church figures.
1953 The first LSD clinic opens to the public in England under Ronald
Sanderson. At the same time, the CIA funded project MK-Ultra
tests the effects of the drug on unwitting subjects.
1955 Alduous Huxley takes LSD. He publishes his experiences in his
book Heaven and Hell.
1959 Allen Ginsberg tries LSD.
1962 Congress passes new drug safety regulations and the FDA
designates LSD an experimental drug and restricts research. The
FDA makes the first LSD related arrests. Alan Watts publishes
The Joyous Cosmology.
1963 LSD hits the streets as a liquid on sugar cubes. Articles about LSD
begin to appear in mainstream media. Owsley "BEAR" Stanley
succeeds in synthesizing crystalline LSD. Police raided his
makeshift bathroom laboratory on Feb 21, 1965 looking for
methamphetamines. Owsley successfully sued for the return of his
equipment because LSD was legal at the time.
1965 Owsley moves to LA and manufactures 300,000 capsules of LSD
which he brings with him back to San Francisco and distributes it
freely or at low cost.
1966 Leary founds the League of Spiritual Development, with LSD as a
Sacrament. In March, Life magazine publishes a cover article
called "LSD: The Exploding Threat of the Mind Drug that Got Out
Of Control." Sandoz Pharmaceutical recalled the LSD it had
previously distributed and withdrew its sponsorship for work with
LSD.
1966 October 6 The California State Legislature outlaws LSD.
1967 San Francisco hosts the Summer of Love as the Federal
Government outlaws LSD.
1967 Police raid Owsley's lab in Orinda, California and confiscate
350,000 doses of LSD and 1,500 doses of STP. He received three
years in prison.
1967 Richard Alpert travels to India and meets Bhagavan Das and his
guru Neem Karoli Baba. His experience in India results in his new
identity as RamDass made famous by his book Be Here Now
published in 1971.
1970's Windowpane acid and blotter acid imprinted with colorful art
appears on the streets. Previously LSD had been tablets and
powder, but blotter and gel-tabs prove more consistent and purity
in potency. President Richard Nixon declares war on drugs.
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1979 Albert Hoffman publishes LSD: My Problem Child.
1980's LSD's popularity declined in the 1980's and then experienced a
mild resurgence in popularity in the 1990's.
2000 LSD use dropped 95% following a major bust by the DEA of
William Leonard Pickard, a Harvard educated organic chemist,
and Clyde Apperson. Pickard got life imprisonment without parole
and Clyde got thirty years without parole. They were convicted of
running a large-scale LSD manufacturing operation out of several
clandestine laboratories, including a former Missile silo near
Wamego, Kansas. ( Source:Wikepedia).
Familiar Faces in the Search for Inner Peace
Kermit Michael Riggs aka Bhagavan Das
Made famous by RamDass
262
Richard Alpert aka RamDass
Author of Be Here Now
Albert Hoffman
LSD: My Problem Child
Owsley Stanley
LSD chemist busted by the DEA
263
Al Hubbard
1950's LSD Pioneer
Alan Watts
Author of The JoyousCosmology
Alduous Huxley: The Doors of Perception
264
Dr. Humphrey Osmond
Introduced Aldous Huxley to Mescaline
265
The Repeal of Inalienable Rights
An essay published in the Marin Independent Journal and the Pacific Sun
When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, he
chose the word "inalienable" to describe something that cannot be taken
away. According to Webster's Dictionary, the word "inalienable" means
"absolute, sacred, and incapable of being surrendered."
Jefferson believed that God has bestowed on all human beings, life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as “inalienable rights.” Further, he
stated that congress cannot take away those rights.
Anyone who has studied the war on drugs over the last century
knows that Jefferson was wrong. A large number of self-serving
individuals in powerful positions have frightened Americans into giving
up those rights for a greater good. This greater good is an unrealistic
moral fantasy called "a drug-free America."
The truth is that after 93 years of persecution, one trillion dollars of
tax money and twenty million prison sentences, illegal drugs are cheaper,
more potent and more available than ever.
A century of drug prohibition has failed because this drug war is a
war against people.
Prohibitionists fail to understand that profit – not morality, drives
the illicit drug market. The use of mind altering, pleasure inducing
substances does not pose any greater or lesser threat to moral standards
than a huge pile of drug money.
When the drug war becomes too expensive to prosecute, and enough
voters wake up to its failure – then we will reconsider the 19 th Century
policy of education, regulation, and taxation.
In the meantime, this illegal, violent and profitable war will
continue to destroy lives.
James Wiley 2007
San Anselmo CA, USA
266
Why Cannabis Must Be Destroyed and Its Users Criminalized
The Prohibitionist controlled Drug Enforcement Administration
offers the following reasons why they must destroy cannabis and
persecute its users.
It has no medical value. This is a false statement backed up by the
FDA in a show of political support for the White House.
It weakens the immune system. As does alcohol, tobacco and
physical exhaustion.
It is physically addictive. For a small percentage of users and to a
lesser degree than tobacco or alcohol.
It has increased tenfold in potency since the 60’s. Potency varies
in different strains. Higher potency reduces the quantity of smoke
required to achieve the desired effect. This is easier on the lungs.
It has a high potential for abuse. Anything that delivers pleasure,
relieves pain and boredom has a high potential for abuse.
Long-term use leads to loss of memory and mental illness. Shortterm memory loss occurs while under the influence. The possibility of
mental illness exists in approximately 10% of abusers. Memory loss and
mental illness happen anyway with or without the use of cannabis. Some
people are allergic to marijuana and should not use it.
It is a gateway to more dangerous drugs. Many who use heroin
also use marijuana but hardly any marijuana users use heroin. All drugs
are potential gateways to other drugs. This is common knowledge.
It impairs decision-making. The same as alcohol and prescription
drugs. Do not drive or show up for work intoxicated on any drug.
Heavy users develop anti-motivation syndrome. Some do and
some do not. Abstinence and a healthy lifestyle will usually restore
motivation.
It can produce irreversible changes in the brain. Brain scans and
imaging technology can also show permanent changes within the brain
from abusing, tobacco, alcohol, herbal supplements, prescription drugs,
coffee, etc; or from trauma in ones life, like a jail sentence and
confiscation of one's property. Nobody knows what these physiological
changes mean or if they are permanent. A century ago, criminologists
claimed they could identify a criminal by the size and shape of the skull.
267
Marijuana is a Health Issue
The key to re-legalized cannabis/hemp/marijuana is through
statewide medical marijuana initiatives and lowest priority policies
adopted by the local police. Many lawmakers who publicly oppose
medical marijuana may want legal access to it one day for themselves or
a family member. If legal, synthetic, prescription drugs cause damage or
fail to provide relief then medical pot should be an option. Use whatever
works, especially if it is free and you cannot afford the high cost of
prescription medicine. Those who cannot tolerate smoke can inhale
vapor from a plastic bag attached to a vaporizer. A good vaporizer
costs $149.00.
The majority of Americans today are at odds with the Federal
Government’s enforcement of marijuana laws because it violates the
American spirit of freedom and privacy. It is illegal for Congress to
abolish free choice and create a police state in order to protect children.
Children are in the presence of alcohol, tobacco smoke and prescription
drugs every day and no one goes to jail - so far. Responsible adults
should make those decisions, not police, and politicians. It is a crime to
waste taxpayer's money on a policy that will never work.
The law of supply and demand says that when smokers can obtain
cannabis legally, drug lords go out of business. Take away the profit,
and smuggling stops. Prisons lose eighty percent of their population and
violent criminals serve their full sentence. Bloated law enforcement
budgets around the world return to normal. Police can respond quickly to
emergencies and real crime when they stop wasting resources on pot
smokers.
The tax revenue from legal alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana helps
pays for drug education and treatment. Americans who choose to smoke
can relax in their own homes instead of worrying about neighbors
turning them in to the police. A simple rule for prohibitionists to observe
is to leave people alone unless they cause trouble.
Prohibition, however, will continue to cause damage until a national
forum allows people to talk openly about cannabis. There is no freedom
of speech when public debate is discouraged.
The United States Government must return to the Constitution and
the Bill of Rights. Our founding fathers created these documents to
empower us and protect us from Government intrusion but Prohibition
has taken away these rights- the rights of the states and local jurisdictions
to regulate drug use. Bureaucrats in the Federal government and in the
United Nations often make decisions that go against the will of the
people they represent.
268
The way to end cannabis prohibition is through the vote. Tell
candidates you will not vote for them if they continue with this futile and
destructive policy.
The Frog in the Pot
Americans are like the frog that sits in a pot of water that slowly
heats over a burner. The change in temperature is so gradual the poor
frog does not realize what is happening until it is too late. If that frog
suddenly felt the full heat of Prohibition, it would instantly jump from
the pot.
Americans do not realize how much freedom we have surrendered
to those in Congress and the White House over the last thirty-seven years
because bureaucrats are careful never to bring it to our attention in their
carefully worded speeches. Instead, they promise to get rid of drugs;
however, they know perfectly well the only way to get rid of drugs is to
rid the country of privacy. The belief in a drug free society is pure
fantasy but the repeal of civil rights is real. In the end, we will still have
plenty of drugs and no privacy.
Suggested Guidelines for Re-Legalizing Marijuana
Based on the Dutch model:
1. Licensed and taxed distribution through liquor stores.
2. No advertising.
3. No driving under the influence.
4. ID's required for adults with no sales to minors.
5. No public nuisance.
6. Five plants or less, in a secure location, for one's own personal
use.
In 1970, Congress repealed the unconstitutional 1937 Marijuana Tax
Act and replaced it with The Controlled Substances Act, which restated
Anslinger’s claim that marijuana is a dangerous substance that causes
addiction, criminality, and death. This reshuffling of words made it clear
Congress believes in cannabis Prohibition even when it violates
democratic principles and corrupts the fabric of government. The fear of
a narco-nation dominates discussions at the Federal level; and this will
269
continue until Congress changes policy as they did in 1933, when they
returned control of alcohol to the states.
The Federal Government must quit the Prohibition business and
allow the states to regulate cannabis and other drugs as they did at the
turn of the century. The Constitution reserved the power to regulate
drugs to the states as laboratories of experimentation but Congress, the
Supreme Court and the Presidents - using the Interstate Commerce Act
- repealed state control in 1914 and 1937 and replaced it with the failed
policy we have today.
FOURTH AMENDMENT [U.S. Constitution] - 'The right of
the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and
effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable
cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly
describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things
to be seized.'
270
Famous People Who Have
Smoked Pot But Did Not Inhale
Under U.S. and International drug policy, the following people are
criminals for having been in possession of the cannabis plant.
Louisa May Alcott
Robert Altman
Jennifer Aniston
Louis Armstrong
Dan Aykroyd
Tallulah Bankhead
Candy Barr
Mischa Barton
Orson Bean
John Belushi
Walter Benjamin
Lewis Black
Susan Blackmore
Michael Bloomberg
Paul Bowles
Bill Bradley
Richard Branson
Pierce Brosnan
Christopher Buckley
Lord Buckley
William F. Buckley
Richard Burton
Bush Family
Jack Carter
Fidel Castro
Neal Cassady
Stephen Colbert
Bing Crosby
David Crosby
Macaulay Culkin
Matt Damon
Rodney Dangerfield
Bob Denver
271
John Denver
Cameron Diaz
Isak Dinesen
Sam Donaldson
Donovan
Alexandre Dumas
Kirsten Dunst
Bob Dylan
Cass Elliot
Melissa Etheridge
Walker Evans
Richard Feynman
Ford Family
Errol Flynn
Morgan Freeman
Art Garfunkel
Ringo Garza
Bill Gates
Will Geer
Gilberto Gil
Newt Gingrich
Alan Ginsberg
Jackie Gleason
Al Gore
Larry Hagman
Gary Hall
Daryl Hannah
Woody Harrelson
Ed Harris
John Hay
Paris Hilton
Don Ho
David Hockney
Victor Hugo
Chrissie Hynde
Jefferson Airplane
Norah Jones
Shawn Kemp
John F. Kennedy
John Kerry
Gene Krupa
Queen Latifah
272
Heath Ledger
Phil Lesh
John Lennon
Rush Limbaugh
Jack London
Courtney Love
Bill Maher
Norman Mailer
Bob Marley
Steve Martin
Groucho Marx
Matthew McConaughey
Margaret Mead
Paul McCartney
Frances McDormand
Mezz Mezzrow
George Michael
John Stuart Mill
Robert Mitchum
Randy Moss
Bill Murray
Willie Nelson
Jack Nicholson
Peggy Noonan
Anita O'Day
Haley Joel Osment
M. Scott Peck
Ryan Phillippe
Pink
Brad Pitt
Michael Pollan
Popeye the Sailorman
Prince Harry
Marcel Proust
Pythagoras
Francois Rabelais
Ross Rebagliati
Buddy Rich
Arthur Rimbaud
Diego Rivera
Oliver Sacks
Carl Sagan
273
Susan Sarandon
Arnold Schwarzenegger
William Shakespeare
Donna Shalala
Sarah Silverman
Robert Smith
Aaron Sorkin
Annie Sprinkle
Robert Louis Stevenson
Rick Steves
Joss Stone
Barbra Streisand
Rob Szatowski
Taboo
Bayard Taylor
Charlize Theron
John Trudell
Oliver Twist
Queen Victoria
Pancho Villa
George Washington
Nathanael West
Montel Williams
Ricky Williams
William Butler Yeats
Johnny Cash
Linda McCartney
Sonny Bono
Bill Clinton
Hillary Clinton
Carrie Fisher
Jane Fonda
Peter Fonda
Sinead O'Connor
Luke Perry
Pablo Picasso
Keanu Reeves
Paul Simon
Wesley Snipes
Sting
274
Stephen King
Ted Turner
Dionne Warwick
Neil Young
Jabbar
Cass Elliot
The Ford Family
Ringo Garza
Brad Renfro
Whitney Houston
Ray Price
Snoop Doggy Dog
Savion Glover
James Brown
Rolling Stones
David Lee Roth
Grateful Dead
Carlos Santana
Freddy Fender
Flavor Flav
Beatles
Timothy Leary
Ken Kesey
John Sinclair
Goldie Hawn
Shirley MacClaine
Tommy Chong
Amy Winehouse
Lindsay Lohan
Kareem Abdul Jabbar
George Soros
Keith Stroup
Alan St.Pierre
Marc Emery
Barack Obama
John Edwards
To name a few…
Sources: www.norml.com (Library)
www.veryimportantpotheads.com
275
Forgiving Our Own Youthful Inclinations
But Not the Youthful Inclinations of Others.
Bill and Hillary Clinton
Bill: "When I was in England, I experimented with marijuana a time
or two and I didn't like it. I did not inhale and never tried it again.
Dec 7, 2000 - In an interview in Rolling Stone magazine, President
Bill Clinton says "I think that most small amounts of marijuana have
been decriminalized in some places, and should be. We really need a reexamination of our entire policy on imprisonment. Some people
deliberately hurt other people and they have to be put in jail to
discourage other people from doing similar things. But a lot of people are
in prison because they have drug problems or alcohol problems and too
many of them are getting out, particularly out of state prisons, without
treatment or education skills, and without serious efforts at job
placement."
During Bill Clinton's administration the number of marijuana
arrests rose from 250,000 to more than 700,000.
Hillary: "I have spoken out on my belief that we should have drug
courts that would serve as alternatives to the traditional criminal justice
system for low-level offenders. If the person who comes before the
court agrees to stay clean and is subjected to drug tests once a week, they
are diverted from the criminal justice system. It is unfair to urge people
to get rid of their addiction and not have the treatment facilities available
when they make up their minds to get treatment.
George W. Bush (R)
Arrested at age 20 for disorderly conduct for stealing a Christmas
wreath from a hotel. At age 26, he took his sixteen-year-old brother
Marvin out drinking and ran over a garbage can which remained stuck
under the vehicle as he continued driving.. At age 30, he was arrested for
276
driving under the influence of alcohol and lost his driver's license for two
years.
"If I were you," he told a reporter," I would not tell your kids that
you smoke pot unless you want them to smoke pot. I don't want some
kids saying, 'Well, Governor Bush did it.'"
In October of 1999, Governor Bush said that he is in favor of a
state's right to decide whether to allow medical use of marijuana,
however he does not support legalizing marijuana for medicinal
purposes.
Later he changed his mind. "Because I think it sends a signal that
relates to a larger question: should we legalize drugs or not? The answer
is, no, we shouldn't because it's part of the legalization process. I think
we can design medicines to do the same things that medical marijuana
can."
California's Governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA)
2003 -The gubernatorial candidate supports medical but not
recreational use of marijuana.
Oct 18, 2007- For the second year in a row, Governor Schwarzenegger
vetoes a bill passed by the state legislature allowing California farmers to
grow industrial hemp.
Newt Gingrich (R-GA)
Admitted he smoked marijuana in college.
Sends a letter to the Journal of the American Medical Association
supporting medical marijuana.
Al Gore (D)
In 1987, Al Gore admitted to his use of marijuana while an
undergrad at Harvard, as an army news correspondent in Vietnam, and
while a reporter in Nashville. "During my junior and senior year of
college," Court stated, "it was looked at in the same way moonshine was
looked at in Prohibition days."
Source: NORML
277
Other Lawmakers Who Admit Having Committed a Drug Felony
Bill Bradley (D)
US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas
Representative James P. Moran (D-VA)
Representative Susan Molinari (R-NY)
Senator Connie Mack (R-FL)
Lincoln Chafee (R)
Governor Gary Johnson (R)
Governor George Pataki (R)
Lt. Gov. Mary Donohue (R)
Governor Dr. Howard Dean (D)
Dick Lamm (D)
Bruce Babbitt (D)
Mike McCurry (D)
Political Family Drug Busts
Sending a Message to Those Outside the Family.
Randall Claude Cunningham
The son of Duke "Death Penalty for Drug Kingpins" Cunningham
(R-CA) was convicted for possession of 400 lbs. of marijuana. In court,
the congressman cried and pleaded for mercy, explaining that his son
"has a good heart. He works hard. He's expressed to me he wants to go
back to school." While out on bail, the hard-working son tested positive
for cocaine three times. When an officer tried to apprehend him
following the third positive test, Randy hurled himself out a window and
broke his leg. Still, the congressman who denounced Clinton's "soft on
crime liberal judges" and railed against "reduced mandatory-minimum
sentences for drug trafficking" – won for his son the mercy denied to so
many others. Randy got 30 months – half the federal "mandatory"
minimum sentence.
Source: Mother Jones, May/ June 2000.
Richard Riley, Jr.
The son of Education Secretary Richard Riley (D) was sentenced to
six months house arrest in June of 1993 for conspiring to sell up to 25
grams of cocaine and 100 grams of marijuana in South Carolina. The
278
initial charges carry a penalty of ten years to life in prison. Riley's light
sentence allowed him to continue his work at an environmental
consulting firm.
Source: NORML > Tokin Politics
Gayle Rosten
Daughter of former house ways and means committee chair, Dan
Rostenkowski (D-IL), was charged with possession of 29 grams of
cocaine with intent to deliver in June of 1990. Rosten, facing up to
fifteen years in prison, pled guilty to a lesser charge and received three
years probation and twenty hours of public service, paid a fine of twenty
eight hundred dollars, and forfeited the car in which the cocaine was
found. Three years later, Rosten was again found with a gram of cocaine
in her possession. In violation of her probation, Rosten could have faced
up to three years in prison. However, the charge was dismissed by one
judge, and then reinstated after Rosten was indicted by the County Grand
Jury. On April 12, 1994, Cook County Circuit Judge Michael Toomin
ruled that the search of Rosten had been illegal. Ironically, Judge Toomin
ruled that the packets of cocaine were admissible evidence against the
two passengers that supposedly "dropped" the packets in Rosten's car.
Source: NORML > Tokin Politics
Cindy McCain
The wife of former presidential candidate John McCain (RAZ),"admitted stealing Percocet and Vicodin from the American
Volunteer Medical Team, an organization that aids Third World
countries. Percocet and Vicodin our schedule 2 drugs, in the same legal
category as opium. Each PL Pfaff carries a penalty of one year in prison
and a monetary fine." However, McCain did not face prosecution. She
was allowed to enter in a pre-trial diversion program and escaped with no
blemish to her record.
Source: NORML > Tokin Politics
Dan Burton, II (18)
The son of Representative Dan Burton (R-IN), was busted in January
of 1994 on charges of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute.
Allegedly, Burton II was transporting seven pounds of marijuana in a car
from Texas to Indiana when the police caught him in Louisiana. He
plead guilty to felony charges of possession of marijuana with intent to
distribute. Rather than face ten to sixteen months in federal prison,
279
Burton received five years probation, 2000 hours of community service,
three years of house arrest and random drug screening. Five months later
police found thirty marijuana plants and a shotgun in Burton's apartment
in Indianapolis. Under federal mandatory minimum rules, Burton should
have received at least five years in federal prison, plus a year or more for
arrest while on probation. State prosecutors decided that the total weight
of marijuana from the 30 plants was 25 grams (less than an ounce), thus
reducing the charge to a misdemeanor. The Indiana prosecutor threw out
all the charges against him saying, "I didn't see any sense in putting him
on probation a second time."
Source: NORML > Tokin Politics
John Murtha (35)
The son of Representative John Murtha (D-PA), received a sentence
of 11 to 23 months in jail after pleading guilty to selling a gram of
cocaine to an informant. Murtha was busted for two burglaries in 1980
and for armed robbery in 1985. Murtha was on a roll at the time of his
arrest and could have faced more than ten years in prison if he'd been
prosecuted under federal guidelines. The judge hearing mirthless case
allowed him to temporarily withdraw a plea bargain and resubmit later so
he could enter the jails school release program and continue his
education.
Source: NORML > Tokin Politics
Suzanne Gallo (33)
The daughter of former representative Dean Gallo (R-NJ), was
charged with five counts of cocaine possession, five counts of intent to
distribute, five counts of distribution, and five counts of conspiracy.
Facing five to ten years in prison for each charge, Gallo pled guilty to
one count of distribution and one count of conspiracy to distribute
cocaine. Gallo was sentenced to five years probation in nineteen 1992.
Source: NORML> Tokin Politics
Pat Robertson
The popular Christian evangelist was never caught with illegal drugs
however; he did offer his opinion about the well-known scientist Carl
Sagan, who smoked marijuana for inspiration for his popular books and
films on the universe.
Roberts: "Well, this just goes to show you that all of Carl Sagan's
scientific theories and his teaching are whacked out ideas dreamed up in
clouds of illegal marijuana smoke."
Source: 700 Club; Aug 1999
280
The Rogues Gallery
(Source: www.injusticeline.com)
281
282
Sources
The Emperor Wears No Clothes - by Jack Herer
The ultimate sourcebook on the cannabis plant and the conspiracy to
eradicate it from the earth.
www.druglibrary.org
The largest online collection of research articles on cannabis.
www.norml.org
The first organization to challenge the marijuana laws
.
www.leap.cc
The first law enforcement group to demand an end to the drug war
www.wikipedia.org
The first online encyclopedia
www.vcl.org
A group of dedicated lawyers who forced the repeal of alcohol
Prohibition
www.centerpointe.com
A program designed to increase intelligence
www.erowid.org
The most complete source of drug information online.
www.druglibrary.org
The most complete collection of historical drug documents online
Other links
www.thinkquest.org
www.livinghistoryfarm.org
www.mapinc.org
www.taima.org
283
Founded on March 16, 2002, LEAP is made of current and former
members of law enforcement who believe the existing drug policies have
failed in their intended goals of addressing the problems of crime, drug
abuse, addiction, juvenile drug use, stopping the flow of illegal drugs
into this country and the internal sale and use of illegal drugs. By
declaring this a war, the Government has increased the problems of
society and made them far worse. A system of regulation rather than
Prohibition is a less harmful, more ethical and a more effective public
policy.
The mission of LEAP is to reduce the multitude of unintended
harmful consequences resulting from fighting the war on drugs and
to lessen the incidence of death, disease, crime, and addiction by
ultimately ending drug prohibition.
LEAP's goals are: (1) To educate the public, the media, and
policymakers, to the failure of current drug policy by presenting a true
picture of the history, causes and effects of drug abuse and the crimes
related to drug prohibition and (2) To restore the public's respect for law
enforcement, which has been greatly diminished by its involvement in
imposing drug prohibition.
LEAP's main strategy for accomplishing these goals is to create a
constantly enlarging speakers bureau staff with knowledgeable and
articulate former drug-warriors who explain the impact of current drug
policies on police/community relations; the safety of law enforcement
officers and suspects; police corruption and misconduct; and the
financial and human costs associated with current drug policies.
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
121 Mystic Ave
Medford MA 02155
(Ph) 781-393-6985
(Fax) 781-393-2964
info@leap.cc
www.leap.cc
Join LEAP and help create a better drug policy!
It cost nothing to join
284
Presidential Candidates on U.S. Drug
Policy
Hillary Clinton (D)
Opposes decriminalization of marijuana.
Divert non-violent drug offenders away from prison
Address drug problem with treatment and special drug courts
"We need diversion, like drug courts. Non-violent offenders should not
be serving hard time in our prisons. They need to be diverted from our
prison system. We need to make sure that we do deal with the distinction
between crack and powder cocaine. And ultimately we need an attorney
general and a system of justice that truly does treat people equally, and
that has not happened under this administration."
Source: 2007 Democratic Primary Debate at Howard University June 28,
2007
John Edwards (D)
Supports national ban on smoking in public places. (Sep 2007)
Do not lower drinking age from 21 to 18. (Sep 2007)
Help convicts with drug counseling & job counseling. (Jun 2007)
Supports drug courts and alternatives to incarceration. (Mar 2004)
Disparity in penalty for crack vs. powder is not justified. (Jan 2004)
Admits having smoked marijuana. (Nov 2003)
Voted NO on increasing penalties for drug offenses. (Nov 1999)
285
Rated B- by VOTE-HEMP, indicating a pro-hemp voting record. (Dec
2003)
Rudy Giuliani (R)
In Dorismond drug shooting, sullied victim as "no choirboy". (Jan 2007)
Drug policy should be an integral part of foreign policy. (Sep 1997)
Mike Huckabee (R)
More drug courts & rehab, instead of incarceration. (Sep 2007)
Drug education fails; drug punishment works. (Jun 2007)
Supports drug courts for non-violent drug offenders. (Jan 2007)
Stricter penalties for drug-related crimes. (Nov 2002)
Treatment for drug use instead of incarceration. (Jan 2001)
More federal funding for all aspects of Drug War. (Aug 2000)
*Dennis Kucinich (R)
Supports national ban on smoking in public places. (Sep 2007)
Lower drinking age from 21 to 18; and voting age to 16. (Sep 2007)
Medical marijuana should be decided by doctors & patients. (Aug 2007)
Hasn't smoked marijuana, but would decriminalize it. (Nov 2003)
Emphasizes rehabilitation over incarceration. (Sep 2003)
War on Drugs benefits only the prison-industrial complex. (Aug 2003)
Racial bias in drug enforcement is pervasive. (Aug 2003)
Addiction is a medical and moral problem. (Aug 2003)
286
Voted NO on military border patrols to battle drugs & terrorism. (Sep
2001)
Voted NO on prohibiting needle exchange & medical marijuana in DC.
(Oct 1999)
Voted NO on subjecting federal employees to random drug tests. (Sep
1998)
Rated A+ by VOTE-HEMP, indicating a pro-hemp voting record.
John McCain (R)
Mexico should extradite drug dealers to the US. (Mar 2007)
Administration is AWOL on the war on drugs. (Mar 2000)
Public/private partnerships for drug treatment. (Jan 2000)
Prevention & education apply to alcohol as well as marijuana. (Oct 1999)
We’re losing drug war - just say no. (Oct 1999)
$1B for detection equipment for more border interdiction. (Mar 1999)
Mexico: balancing act between free trade & stopping drugs. (Mar 1999)
Restrict methadone treatment programs. (Feb 1999)
Stricter penalties; stricter enforcement. (Jul 1998)
Voted YES on spending international development funds on drug
control. (Jul 1996)
Barack Obama (D)
Supports decriminalization of marijuana but not legalization.
Do not lower drinking age from 21 to 18. (Sep 2007)
287
Smokes cigarettes now; smoked some pot in high school. (Feb 2007)
Admitted marijuana use in high school & college. (Jan 2007)
Deal with street-level drug dealing as minimum-wage affair. (Oct 2006)
"I think the war on drugs has been a failure, and I think we need to
rethink and decriminalize our marijuana laws." (2004 Northwestern
University speech.)
Understand why youngsters want to use drugs. (Aug 1996)
Ron Paul (R)
Repeal most federal drug laws; blacks are treated unfairly. (Sep 2007)
Inner-city minorities are punished unfairly in war on drugs. (Sep 2007)
$500B on War on Drugs since 1970s has been a total failure. (Sep 2007)
Legalize industrial hemp. (Jan 2007)
Voted NO on military border patrols to battle drugs & terrorism. (Sep
2001)
Voted NO on subjecting federal employees to random drug tests. (Sep
1998)
War on Drugs has abused Bill of Rights . (Dec 2000)
Legalize medical marijuana. (Jul 2001)
Rated A by VOTE-HEMP, indicating a pro-hemp voting record. (Dec
2003)
Mitt Romney (R)
Combat the ruthless narco-terrorists in Colombia. (Jul 2007)
288
Fred Thompson (R)
DEA has no meaningful performance goals on illegal drugs. (Jun 2001)
Voted YES on increasing penalties for drug offenses. (Nov 1999)
Voted YES on spending international development funds on drug
control. (Jul 1996)
289
Important Questions to Ask Yourself
Who is God?
a. A description in the Bible.
b. A Supreme Male Being Who made all things.
c. A product of my own imagination.
To whom does my body belong?
a. My body belongs to God.
b. My body belongs to the government.
c. My body belongs to me.
Who should control dangerous drugs?
a. Criminals
b. The DEA
c. The States
When will America become drug-free?
a. When we all become informants.
b. When we all decide to stop using drugs.
c. Never.
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